KIEV, Dec. 14 – President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration on Tuesday described as “unacceptable” the police detention of a journalist late Monday, and vowed to make sure nothing like that would ever happen again.

But hours later another Ukrainian journalist reported that he had been detained – and searched – by a special police squad on Monday in Kiev.

Vitaliy Sych, the editor of Korrespondent magazine, which had recently run an interview with opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, was stopped near his office without apparent cause, and searched by police.

“They were interested in money in my pockets. They asked me where [the money] is from, why? Am I not afraid of being stopped and robbed on the street?” Sych wrote.

“I said: this is the first time I have been stopped on the street over 14 years of my experience as a journalist,” Sych wrote. Police later also searched his sister’s car.

The incident involving Sych appears to come at about the same time as a special police unit has detained prominent journalist, Mustafa Nayem, and took him to local police office. He was later released after involvement of lawmakers.

Nayem has a history of uneasy relations with Yanukovych. At least on one occasion, in response to a sharp question, Yanukovych had warned Nayem that the journalist “was not his friend.”

The detentions are the latest developments in a country whose government has been repeatedly accused of trying to introduce restrictions on the freedom of speech.

Ever since the election of Yanukovych to the presidency in February, the pressure on journalists in Ukraine has been increasing with police, and even local officials, attacking them.

The pressure reached a high point in August that was highlighted by the disappearance of Vasyl Klymentyev, the editor of Noviy Stil newspaper, in Kharkiv.

Anatoliy Mohyliov, the interior minister, later in August admitted that Klymentyev was probably dead, and that police officers may have been involved in the matter.

“There are enough reasons to believe that he is dead,” Mohyliov said. “We have suspicions that members of law enforcement organs, both current and former, may be involved.”

Serhiy Liovochkin, the chief of staff at the Yanukovych administration, said Tuesday that the president “believes this was unacceptable” to use police force against the journalists.

Hanna Herman, a deputy chief of staff, apparently unaware about detention and search by police of the editor of Korrespondent, spoke about Nayem’s detention as the “only” case that must not be repeated.

“We had a very serious conversation today,” Herman said. “This is the only case and it must not awaken a mood” that would allow police to detain people without an apparent cause.

The International Press Institute, based in Vienna, the world’s oldest global press freedom organization, in an open letter to Yanukovych in August, expressed concerns over “significant deterioration” in press freedom in Ukraine since February, when Yanukovych had become the president.

Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based media watchdog, slammed the authorities with the same criticism in July. (tl/ez)