CRIMEAN WRITER SILENCED BY REGIME

Well known Crimean author Mark Agatov quits investigative journalism. In an interview to the Crimean News Agency Mr. Agatov said that this activity as well as defence of human rights are virtually banned by law or directives in the Ukraine today. “Ukrainian officials and higher-ups are protecting themselves from any criticism”, Agatov says. Former prime minister of the Crimea has a grudge against the journalist for the book on him SERGEI KUNITSYN AND HIS MEN. Mark Agatov had often received threats and defended himself in lawsuits for exposing the political regime in the Ukraine and the Crimea. He has recently published a novel on the orange revolution and its financial sponsor. This character in his book has a lot of resemblance with exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Mark Agatov says that from now on, he is switching from investigations to fiction: “Ukrainian lawmakers not only banned to write documented books on history. They also outlawed any mentioning in fictional novels of living individuals including politicians. Experts from the Foundation for Defence of Glasnost analyzed Ukrainian laws. They came to a conclusion that only regime lauding poet laureates or authors living abroad may touch upon events in this country. I am not going to leave my native Crimea. However I am not allowed to work as I did before. I had to postpone publishing “Contemporary History of Crimea” until better times and to resume writing crime and fantasy fiction”.