The organizers – NGO Krym SOS and information platform Krym: Realii – have named the exposition “Fully Seized” because it displays the photos that remained intact after FSB operatives had searched and seized 900 gigabytes of information from Mykola Semena’s computer. It will be recalled that Semena has been under a written pledge not to leave Crimea since past April because the occupational authorities allege that he “called for violating Russia’s territorial integrity” in a Krym: Realii article. Past week an “FSB Directorate in Crimea” investigator served a bill of indictment on Semena, and now the journalist and his lawyers are examining the case file (six volumes in eight months over Semena’s three-page article!) and getting ready for a trial (Den wrote about this in No. 225-226 of December 9). The lawyers insist that the Semena case should receive as wide publicity and support from the Ukrainian government and international bodies as possible (see Den, No. 228 of December 14), so the exhibit that opens on December 15, at 4 p.m. in Crimea House (9, Omelianovycha-Pavlenka St., Kyiv) is supposed to draw as much attention as possible to the plight of a journalist deprived of the possibility to engage in professional activities. Under the occupational law, he faces up to five years in prison.
The exhibit organizers say that 80 percent of the information FSB men seized from Semena consist of the photo archive of the journalist who was Den’s own longtime correspondent and showed interest in an extremely wide range of issues – repatriation of Crimean Tatars; failure to pursue a pro-Ukrainian policy on the peninsula; the Ukrainian language problem; economic “wild schemes” and real possibilities of Crimean development; the heritage of Crimean artists, ceramists, and folk craftsmen; “tulip mania” at the Nikitsky Botanical Garden… Semena is not only a talented political journalist, but also a photo reportage master who is subtly aware of Crimea, its beauty and impressive natural resources. In the previous years, Semena’s photos were also displayed at the exhibits of Den’s International Photo Competition’s best pictures. Besides, the journalist’s articles on the history of Crimea were printed in Den Library’s several publications, particularly in the bestsellers Return to Tsarhorod and Ukraine Incognita. TOP 25. Thousands of Mykola Semena’s pictures are on “poetic Crimea,” but, unfortunately, the Crimea House exposition can only display about 15 of them.
THIS PHOTOGRAPH WILL NOT BE DISPLAYED AT THE CRIMEA HOUSE EXHIBIT, BUT MYKOLA SEMENA’S TOTAL “POETIC CRIMEA” IS IN HIS SEIZED ARCHIVE. UKRAINIANS MUST NOT LET OCCUPIERS DESTROY THIS PHOTO STORY / Photo by Mykola SEMENA
The organizers invite everybody to attend, after the opening ceremony, the discussion “Journalism in Crimea: Ways of Liberation” at which the Crimean journalist’s lawyer Andrei Sabinin will be present. Among the points to be discussed is the Semena case, the possible public actions for his release, as well as “journalism in Crimea-mainland reference frame.”
