Pressure on Priamyi TV channel has nothing to do with European standards – Poroshenko
He said this while commenting on the search of the home of the channel's owner, Volodymyr Makeyenko, on Thursday, the party's press service reported.
"There were so many channels that were telling lies about me. And I just didn't like what they were saying. But here we have to follow Voltaire's principle: 'I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.' That was my principle," Poroshenko said during his visit to Donetsk region on Thursday.
"Yesterday there were statements by the head of the concerned [parliamentary] committee and a government representative that they were going to bring journalists to account, to control the Internet," Poroshenko said, commenting on the initiatives of Servant of the People party representatives to introduce criminal liability for journalists.
"Today, unfortunately, I'm not sure that President [Volodymyr] Zelensky knows about this, but I'm firmly convinced that this is exactly the case that needs his intervention. Conducting searches and freezing accounts are attempts to stop broadcasting on any channel. This is a problem not of a channel and not a single case. This is a problem of Ukraine as a whole and the European choice of the state because this definitely has nothing to do with either European rules or European values," Poroshenko said.
He said that the European Solidarity party would defend freedom of speech in Ukraine.
It was reported earlier that employees of Ukraine's State Bureau of Investigation were conducting searches in the home of Priamyi TV channel owner and former MP Volodymyr Makeyenko as part of the investigation into the sale and purchase of the channel.
The channel, in turn, stated that it regarded searches in Makeyenko's home as pressure and an offensive on freedom of speech.
Earlier reports said that the SBI was investigating possible tax evasion by Poroshenko during the sale and purchase of the Priamyi television channel.
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