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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

APPEAL TO THE SPEAKER OF THE VERKHOVNA RADA OF UKRAINE, VOLODYMYR MIKHAILOVICH LITVIN

08.09.2005   

Your Honour, Volodymyr Mikhailovich!

During the last session of the Civic Council under the direction of the Head of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Executive Director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union Volodymyr Yavorsky presented a review of human rights violations during the 2004 election campaign. Events that have taken place since indicate a serious deterioration in the situation as regards the observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

We are seeing once again in Ukraine the persecution of free-thinking people and the use of law enforcement bodies as a weapon against political opposition. Of immense concern to human rights organisations in Ukraine are the mass detentions and arrests of activists from youth organizations, who peacefully distribute information materials, express in public their political convictions, and carry out their constitutional right to freedom of peaceful assembly. The enjoyment of these constitutional freedoms which are fundamental in a democratic state have been met with systematic repression from law enforcement agencies. Every day in Ukraine scores of people are detained, who have no involvement in any offences and suffer persecution purely for expressing views which are critical of executive power.

This assessment of the situation in Ukraine is shared by influential international human rights organizations. Confirmation of this can be seen in the statements of our partners in the International Helsinki Human Rights Federation. The most authoritative and famous human rights organization in the world, Amnesty International, in an official statement from 16 July laid emphasis on the fact that, for the first time since independence, Ukraine has prisoners of conscience. The organization has recognized as such six people convicted by the district court in Sumy to 10 days administrative arrest, for having demanded publication of the official protocol on the results of the voting at a polling station, as stipulated in the law «On the Ukrainian Presidential elections». They were sentenced in a closed court hearing, without being allowed to see a lawyer, their parents or journalists.

Flagrant violations of the constitutional right to freedom and security of person are taking place in during these days in many regions of Ukraine.

One can only describe as the height of cynicism and disregard for the constitutional rights of citizens of Ukraine the mass detentions which took place on 16 November in various Ukrainian cities: Luhansk, Kherson, Mikolayiv and others. Students who had themselves come and given law enforcement officers orange roses, were held for between six and eight hours in district police stations.

Mass detentions of civic activists during visits to various regions of the presidential candidate and Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovych, have become a routine part of the activity of law enforcement agencies. Before the first round of voting, on 18 and 19 October, during visits by Yanukovych to Chernihiv and Poltava, 17 people who were distributing printed matter with criticism of the Prime Minister of Ukraine were detained.

In the majority of cases, protocols of detention are not drawn up. The detained activists are advised to stay clear of politics. In some cases threats have been made that grounds will be found for bringing criminal charges. Thus, in Chernihiv, a detained activist of «Pora», Oleksandr Kovalenko was charged with dealing in counterfeit money. Others have been told that they will be charged with stealing mobile telephones, rape, possessing drugs for the purpose of selling them etc.

In most cases, thanks to active intervention by civic human rights organizations and the provision of legal aid when needed, all accusations presented by law enforcement agencies have been rejected by the court, and those held in detention released. However, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine rather than stopping this, is actually making the practice of mass detentions of civic activists more widespread. The kinds of persecution are taking on ever more brutal and unlawful forms.

On 16 and 17 November, a wave of repressions against activists of «Pora» was seen in Kharkiv. On Engels Street, some unidentified individuals in civilian clothes, who produced no documents, detained with force activists of the «Pora» campaign, Ruslan German and Anton Vlasov, who had been handing out campaign material in support of presidential candidate, Viktor Yushchenko. The two were forced to get into separate cars. During the car journey, the young men had their passports taken away, and page 11 – the page with registration – ripped out. They were then taken to the Leninsky district police station where they were held about six hours, without any explanation being given or protocol being prepared. In addition, all information material was confiscated, the reason given being that they were campaign materials. Following the intervention of lawyers from the Kharkiv headquarters of «Our Ukraine», the young men were released. They have lodged complaints about the unlawful actions of the Leninsky district police station to the office of the Prosecutor.

On the same day, at about 7 p.m., unidentified individuals in civilian clothes surrounded flat no. 3 on 175 Hirshman Street, which a «Pora» activist had in September rented and where «Pora» activists from Kyiv and Kyiv region were temporarily staying. Six solidly-built men began trying to force their way into the flat with threats, and demanding that those inside open the door. A little later, two police officers, a major and senior lieutenant came up. The «Pora» activists asked a representative of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group and journalists from the media group «Objective» to come. On the arrival of the representative of KHRG, the individuals in civilian clothes vanished. Major Markin, the deputy head of the criminal investigation unit of the Kyivsky district police station explained that he was on duty that evening in the district office, and that he had been asked to check who was living at that address and on what grounds, as the staff of the local housing office (ZhEK) were claiming that nobody had paid any communal charges for the flat for the last six months. We would suggest that this is a somewhat strange task for the criminal investigation unit. Viktor Kharchevskiy was persuaded to come out with his passport, the major, with journalists’ video cameras on him, copied out the passport details of the activists, after which the police officers left.

However later, around 23.30, four men in civilian clothes again began threatening, trying to push the door in and demanding that they be let in. The young men barricaded the door. The thugs in civilian clothes stood guard outside the flat all night and morning. The «Pora» activists were only able to leave the flat at 12.00 on 17 November under the television cameras of journalists they had called. However, within one or two hours, Viktor Kharchevskiy and five other «Pora» activists from Kyiv were detained while distributing campaign material on the central square of the city. A protocol on an administrative offence was prepared and the young men spent the evening and night in the Dzherzhinsky district police station. Thanks to professional defence of their interests in the court by lawyers from KHRG, the court released the «Pora» activists, and the court hearing on the case has been postponed until 25 November.

All evening and half the night KHRG representatives tried to establish the whereabouts of two more young men from this group: Oleksandr Korol’ and Oleksandr Nedashkovsky, who had gone out to distribute «Pora» leaflets and had not returned. In the Kyivsky district police station they claimed that the two had not been detained, the duty officer in the regional station also said that they had not been detained by either the Kyivsky district station or by any other district stations. However, at about 1.30 a.m. a person who did not identify himself telephoned and said that both Oleksandrs were in fact being held at the Kyivsky district police station. In the evening of 18 November it was still not known what had happened to them, and only in the morning of 19 November, after repeated appeals from KHRG, did the law enforcement officers inform that Nedashkovski had been released, but that Korol’ was being kept in detention, with nothing specific being said about the grounds for this detention.

On 16 November 2004, seven students of the Economics Faculty of Lviv National University, Yury Pshevolodsky, Ivanna Palivoda, Tetyana Artemonova, Ulyana Okolovych; Andriy Karas’, Roman Vozny, Oleg Boriychuk, were detained in Vinnytsa, where they were staying in a private flat on Ivan Bohun Street.

All those detained are activists of the civic campaign «Pora». They had come to Vinnytsa in order to carry out campaigning work aimed at encouraging people to check that their names were on the voter lists before the second round of voting. Three of them (Roman Vozny, Oleg Boriychuk and Andriy Karas) were detained at night while painting graffiti on a wall on Kyivska Street in Vinnytsa, the other four were detained by an operations team of the Vinnytsa city police station at home. During the detention of the group of citizens at home, a search was made of the premises, during which after a third attempt, a police officer showed a small packet with a substance which looked like grass, and the people were detained on suspicion of «possessing drugs». They were taken to Leninsky and Zamostyansky district police stations. They were not charged with anything, nor were they taken to court, yet on the next day, 17 November, in the evening, all were put, on the basis of an order of the Prosecutor’s office in Vinnytsa into the temporary isolation unit of the MIA of Ukraine in the Vinnytska region, where they were held unlawfully for several hours, despite the fact that each of them, when detained, had papers removed which established their identity, and detention in temporary isolation units of people with identification documents is categorically forbidden.

It was only thanks to the efforts of State Deputy V.V. Skomarovsky, lawyer V.V. Multyan, and the Vinnytsa Human Rights Group, that it was possible to have all those detained released late in the evening of 17 November.

We consider that the practice of mass and simultaneous short-term detentions of representatives of the opposition, lasting up to 72 hours (until the deadline for bringing charges) has nothing in common with the holding of free elections, that it is incompatible with democratic principles and must be stopped immediately.

The facts outlined above, in our opinion, provide convincing evidence that the actions of the law enforcement bodies of Ukraine bear all the hallmarks of political persecution of civic activists, are not based on the law, contravene provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

We would ask you to use the powers vested in you by the law, and also the authority of the highest legislative body of State power, to stop mass violations of the constitutional rights of people to freely express their views, to freedom and security of person and to freedom of movement.

Human rights organizations of Ukraine will continue to use all possible measures to counter repressive actions from bodies of executive power and to defend individuals who have become the victims of arbitrary detentions, arrest and other forms of political persecution carried out by law enforcement agencies.

Yevgeniy Zakharov
Head of the Board

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