Mykola Semena

Mykola Mykhailovych Semena (; born 14 May 1950) is a Ukrainian journalist who worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in the mid-2010s.

In 2016 he was arrested by the Russian authorities in Crimea and was tried in the following year. He was found guilty of separatism, and was barred from working as a journalist. The court sentence was criticized by several Western governments and nongovernmental organizations ("NGOs").

Career Semena worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in the mid-2010s.

In April 2016 he was arrested by Russian authorities in Crimea, and was charged with acting "against the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation." He was barred for three years from "public activities", including journalism,

His sentence was criticized as "politically motivated" by a number of Western governments and by over two dozens NGOs, many affiliated with the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe declared that "The case of Semena reminds us all of the arbitrary practice of silencing critical voices in Crimea." Semena himself called the sentence that had been imposed on him "a sentence against journalism in Russia." In February 2019, the Ukrainian Ministry of Information Policy and Ministry of Foreign Affairs nominated Semena and another Ukrainian journalist, Roman Sushchenko—who had likewise been arrested and sentenced by Russia, in the Ukrainian government's view illegally—for the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize.

In 2019 Semena published a book, The Crimean Report, about Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.