MOSCOW, August 11 (RIA Novosti) – The OSCE’s Representative on Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic on Monday called for the immediate release of Andrei Stenin(#freeAndrew), a photojournalist with the Rossiya Segodnya news agency who went missing in eastern Ukraine.
“I call for Stenin’s immediate release,” Mijatovic said. “This dangerous practice of detaining and abducting media workers is unacceptable and must end. I call on those responsible to stop targeting journalists for carrying out their work.”
On Monday, the Russian Embassy in Kiev filed a diplomatic note to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry over Stenin’s disappearance. An EU official said earlier in the day that the European Union was concerned about the fate of the photographer and was trying to help.
Stenin who has been working in Donetsk, Slaviansk and other eastern Ukrainian cities went missing on August 5. According to the militia commander of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Igor Strelkov, the photographer could have left for the city of Shakhtarsk with the militia’s press corps, where he was later detained by Right Sector militants.
On August 8, an informed source told RIA Novosti that the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) in the Zaporizhia Region had detained Stenin in southern Ukraine. A spokesman for the local SBU office denied the allegations.
On August 9, Rossiya Segodnya submitted an application to the Ukrainian Interior requesting it to take urgent measures to find Stenin.
