A/HRC/45/CRP.8 86. OHCHR remains concerned about the lack of freedom of peaceful assembly in territory controlled by self-proclaimed ‘republics’. Protests by coal miners against salary delays reportedly resulted in a series of arrests of participants.65 OHCHR was also informed of cases when some employees of ’public’ institutions of ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ holding Russian Federation citizenship were asked by their management to justify their failure to participate in the referendum on amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation in June 2020.66 B. Freedom of opinion and expression and of the media 87. OHCHR continued to document attacks and threats against media workers in relation to their work, made both in person and online. During the reporting period, OHCHR recorded seven incidents of physical attacks combined with verbal threats, affecting four female and five male victims. A significant number of incidents targeted journalists whose work focused on the authorities’ response to COVID-19. On 29 April 2020, a well-known journalist and his cameraman were attacked by law enforcement officials, after they refused to leave the site from where they were filming a COVID-19-related rally near the Cabinet of Ministers building in Kyiv. 88. On 24 March 2020, a TV journalist was physically attacked in Krasyliv (Khmelnytskyi region) while filming an investigative report about local suppliers of personal protective equipment (PPEs). The attack was appropriately classified by police as intentional bodily injury of a journalist in relation to their professional activities. The investigators, however, attempted to close the case referring to lack of corpus delicti, which may amount to a failure to investigate.67 89. OHCHR is also concerned about other threats received by investigative journalists in relation to their work. Starting from 5 July until the end of the reporting period, an investigative journalist was repeatedly threatened online by individuals allegedly affiliated with ERWG after she exposed possible links of such groups with a fact-checking organization.68 Another journalist received anonymous threats after she published an article about Telegram channels popular amongst members of Parliament that she alleged were administered in the Russian Federation.69 In both cases the perpetrators had not been identified as of 31 July 2020. 90. OHCHR continued to observe further shrinking of civic space in territory controlled by self-proclaimed ‘republics’, including through the enforcement of new ‘regulations’ limiting freedom of expression online. While social media was the only platform available for some expression of critical voices, following administrative restrictions imposed in December 2019,70 OHCHR observed fewer critical views published on social media. 65 66 67 68 69 70 22 urged Ukraine to review the draft laws with a view to ensuring the effectiveness of collective bargaining and of the right to union representation, CESCR, Concluding Observations (E/C.12/UKR/CO/7), paras. 27, 28. OHCHR interviews, 10 June 2020, 24 July 2020. OHCHR interviews, 30 June 2020, 7 July 2020. OHCHR interview, 21 July 2020. OHCHR interview, 30 July 2020. OHCHR interview, 17 August 2020. In December, ‘Luhansk people’s republic’ expanded the list of ‘administrative offences’ to include dissemination, including online, of information offending human dignity or public morals and explicit disrespect to ‘authorities’. See OHCHR, Report on the human rights situation in Ukraine 16 November 2019 to 15 February 2020, para. 99.