KIEV, April 13 – Police on Tuesday brutally attacked journalists at a newspaper that had published an investigative report on corruption among lawmakers, triggering protest action that disrupted traffic on a busy highway near Lviv.

The attack, filmed on camera and available on YouTube, is the fourth such incident involving journalists since the inauguration of President Viktor Yanukovych to the presidency in February.

The developments underscore earlier fears that the Yanukovych administration may seek to restrict freedom of speech by clamping down on journalists and free media.

“Many understood that a wolf will never become a vegetarian,” Dmytro Hnap, a Kiev-based civil right activist, said. “But few expected that the attack on the freedoms and rights will come so fast, and will be so rude.”

The latest attack on journalists comes as Yanukovych, in Washington, has been assuring U.S. President Barack Obama that his government is committed to promoting democracy and freedom in Ukraine.

The attack on the journalists and the senior editor of Ekspress newspaper in Horodok, a town in the Lviv region, came a day after police had arrested - without charges - a journalist who had written the investigative report.

The senior editor of Ekspres went to the police on Tuesday to inquire and to report on the arrest, but a local police chief had ordered to attack the journalists and to destroy their video recording equipment.

The newspaper staff later went on a protest action by blocking traffic at a major highway near Lviv that is linking Kiev and Chop, a Ukrainian city on the border with the European Union.

The staff demanded that the local police chief, identified as Melnyk, and two other police officers attacking the journalists, be fired from police.

The newspaper also demanded Parliament to create a commission that would investigate the rising number of attacks against journalists in Ukraine.

Mykhaylo Tsymbaliuk, the head of police in the Lviv region, on Tuesday arrived to negotiate the end of the protest acting, seeking to unblock the traffic.

He said police opened its investigation into the attack on journalists, and said he will “recommend” firing the Horodok police chief.

The Kiev Independent Media Union issued a statement expressing serious concerns over the growing number of attacks on the journalists.

“These [attacks] give an idea of about an atmosphere that is being set in Ukraine,” the union said. “If the new government doesn’t react with an independent investigation, it risks of seeding a storm.”

Other recent attacks on journalists include apparently pressure from the SBU security service on the independent television station TVi, and a brief detention of journalists at Ukryainskiy Dim press conference hall in downtown Kiev.

Also, a Kiev local government official last week attacked STB television crew by grabbing the microphone and throwing it into a trash can. The incident was filmed by the crew, and the video is also available on YouTube.

The official, Volodymyr Storozhenko, the head of the Kiev housing department, later explained he did not want to answer a question from the reporter.

“In order to prevent [anti-government protests] like what happened in Kyrgyztsan, these authorities must be given a lesson of mini-Maidans,” Hnap said. “If you are silent today, tomorrow the situation will be worse.” (tl/ez)