Tag Archives: political repression in Ukraine
| Andrei Sokolov: ‘They hid me from OSCE commission in a private apartment’
Andrei Sokolov, kidnapped six months ago while leaving a Ukrainian court, has returned to Russia
By Julia Polukhina, Novaya Gazeta
October 15: Russian citizen Andrei Sokolov came to the Dontesk People’s Republic (DPR) on December 4, 2014, where, in his own words, he had planned to engage in humanitarian aid. But on December 16, 2014, he mistakenly drove his car into a Ukrainian roadblock near Gorlovka, was formally arrested on December 29, and ended up in the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) office in Mariupol. Sokolov was charged under Part. 1, Art. 258-3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (assistance to a terrorist organization). Solokov’s lawyer, Valery Avzhenko, argued that there was insufficient evidence to convict Sokolov, and the evidence that existed had been obtained in violation of the rules and requirements of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
| Communist Aleksandrovskaya is released from custody under house arrest
Active fight of the Communist Party of Ukraine for release of the first secretary of its Kharkov regional committee Alla Aleksandrovskaya, arrested more than three months ago on fabricated accusations, was crowned with success. On October 13, 2016, the Appellate court of the Kharkov region took arguments of the lawyers and made the decision to release Alla Aleksandrovskaya from custody.
It became possible thanks to skilled work of lawyers and active support from the foreign left-wing parties and the public opinion.
Alla Aleksandrovskaya, having left the Kharkov pre-trial detention center, declared to journalists that she is ready to prove her own innocence and criminal nature of the operating Ukrainian power.
Let’s remind, on June 28 the staff of the Kharkov and Kiev managements of the SBU, Ukrainian secret police, carried out a search at the People’s Deputy of Ukraine of four convocations, the honorary citizen of Kharkov and the head of the Kharkov regional committee of the KPU Alla Aleksandrovskaya and detained her according to Art. 110 “Infringement of territorial integrity”. Already on June 30 the Kiev district court arrested Alla Aleksandrovskaya for two months without the bail right.
On October 13th the Appellate court of the Kharkov region changed a measure of restraint for Alla Aleksandrovskaya to the round-the-clock house arrest with carrying an electronic bracelet.
| SBU arrested Brazilian volunteer Rafael Lusvarghi
The Brazilian citizen Rafael Lusvarghi who was a fighter in the Donbass militias has been arrested in the International airport of Boryspil (Kiev). Reportedly, he was arrested after Great Britain (some sources mention British Airways) made his plane bound for Moscow land in Kiev. According to the words of SBU workers he fought at the side of the Donetsk People’s Republic. It has been reported by the Prosecutor’s office of Kiev on October 6. According to the department, the Brazilian was arrested at abut 9 am. They revealed that he was since September 2014 in the battalion Viking of the DPR. He took part in defence operations in Vergulyovka, Pervomayskoe, Gorlovka, Starobeshevo, Debaltsevo and Donetsk airport. The SBU already posted a video with his arrest during which he was treated like a terrorist, which might also the official charge.
The next day Donetsk news agency confirmed the fact of arrest and gave some new details. During a body search the operatives seized the DPR military ID with Strelkov`s signature, passport of a foreign country and laptop with a correspondence at once called to be “terrorist”.
Immediately after detention the SBU workers managed to come up with and to extend such skills and professions to him as military skier, climber, explosive expert, radio operator, expert on hostage-taking. The criminal proceedings were initiated against Latin America citizen with a wording “formation of a terrorist organization”.
Donetsk news agency denies SBU version that arrested man is a “foreign mercenary” and describes Rafael Lusvarghi as a warrior-internationalist who had been standing for the freedom of the LPR and DPR.
Alongside this the Ukrainian authorities continue denying the existence of international mercenaries from Turkey, Sweden and the US within AFU and squads of volunteer-punitive.
Reconciliation instead of repression Statement of European personalities in support of democratic forces
We are seriously concerned about the facts of the systematic pressure on the opposition in Ukraine.
On September 4th, right-wing radicals had the attacked “Inter” TV channel. The channel’s office was burned by nationalists, only the miracle helped to avoid human casualties. Threats of physical violence are coming against journalists and editors of “NewsOne” channel. In fact, all of the independent media are facing direct violence or the threat of violence from nationalist organizations.
| Witch-hunt in Ukrainian schools
A new school year begins in Ukraine at September 1, that is why this day is considered Knowledge day. Ukrainian nationalists have decided to prepare for that date on their own, and have organized a witch-hunt among teachers and university professors. They are specifically browsing the pages of teachers in social networks to identify signs of sympathy for the Soviet Union or Russia, as well as opposition to the Kiev regime’s interpretation of Ukrainian crisis in 2014-2016 years. If they find something like this, they begin a public persecution of the victim.
In recent weeks, there were already several such cases in Ukraine. Witch-hunt campaign was launched in Mariupol. There Ukrainian nationalists found 8 teachers whose views they consider “anti-Ukrainian” and demanded their dismiss. Nationalists in Kharkov took similar searches. They found 3 teachers. http://kharkovchane.ru/2016/08/16/v-gorodax-ukraina-trebuyut-uvolit-uchitelej-za-lajki-v-socsetyax/
See more details http://rusvesna.su/recent_opinions/1471475040
Nationalists in Odessa conducted similar searches too. Nationalist site «048.ua» told about the features of this technology. The monitoring object was the social network “Odnoklassniki”: “About a week we examined what our teachers write and where put the “like” in the social networks. How do we do it? – We went to the site of each school, found the name and photo of the teacher, and picked through the search human we needed”. According to them almost every school in Odessa has a teacher hostile to Ukrainian nationalism. In their article nationalists indicated information about the seven teachers. http://www.048.ua/news/1336557
In Kharkov, Odessa and Mariupol they hurried to write denunciations to the state security. How did that affect the fate of teachers, we do not know.
The campaign also spread to the universities. Journalist Sergei Ivanov shows particular activity in public denunciations on the university professors. He works on the TV channel “1 + 1”, the owner of the channel is one of the largest Ukrainian billionaires Kolomoisky. Ivanov began his inquisitorial activity in the Zaporozhye region, and recently switched to Kiev. In the Kiev Pedagogical University, he found the two sisters Inna and Irina Kovalchuk. One taught English and other trained in postgraduate school. He had caught both sympathetic to Russia. The sisters visited Moscow this summer and photographed on a background of the Kremlin and the Russian flag. As soon as the TV channel “1 + 1” told about the case, Kovalchuk sisters had been dismissed from the university. A warrant for the dismissal the university rector’s office has received personally from the Minister of Education of Ukraine Liliya Grinevich. Mrs. Grinevich said in an interview with TV channel “1 + 1”, it is necessary to dismiss such teachers on charges of committing an immoral act. ?list=PL1neMztLSbMMZ2OSs1hl7BKBb3UcA_wD1
In Ukraine there are no laws that would prohibit teachers to express their views on the Internet. However, this ban is now set in the order of case law.
