PARIS, August 26 (RIA Novosti) – Representatives of Agence France-Presse in Paris have refused to comment on the detention of its stringer Maxim Vasilenko in Ukraine.
“Now we are not issuing any comments. You should contact us tomorrow, starting from early morning,” representatives of AFP’s Paris headquarters told RIA Novosti late on Monday.
Two journalists of the Crimean Telegraph newspaper, Maxim Vasilenko and Evgeniya Koroleva, went missing in Donetsk Region on Sunday. Later it was revealed that Vasilenko is also a freelance photographer of AFP and the International Information Agency Rossiya Segodnya.
Koroleva who was allowed to make one phone call said that they had been detained by the representatives of the Right Sector. The press service of the Right Sector could not either confirm or deny the information about Vasilenko and Koroleva’s detention. Andrei Krisko, a representative of a human rights mission in Crimea, told RIA Novosti Monday, that the journalists are safe and sound and stressed that the representatives of the Right Sector promised to hand over the detained journalists to police which are to “decide their fate.”
