Two journalists and a number of protesters were detained on Friday Oct 2 near the Bohodukhiv Oil Depot in the Kharkiv oblast. Unlike the detention of journalists outside the SBU [Security Service] building in Kyiv which elicited a formal apology, the police version of events simply ignores the presence of journalists - and their rather incriminating video footage.

Two investigative journalists from the anti-corruption programme Skhemy: Corruption in Detail were accosted on Friday morning, Oct 2 outside Ukraine’s SBU or Security Service and told to confess to being spies.

An investigation is now underway after two Kharkiv police officers were videoed hitting and then trying to detain a black student who appeared to be simply waiting with a friend, also black, at a bus stop. Most disturbingly, the incident would have almost certainly ended differently had a passer-by not begun videoing the police behaviour and then felt compelled to intervene on the student’s behalf.

A foul racially-motivated attack has been reported against a 16-year-old young man in Kyiv with the duty police officer at the metro station nowhere to be seen

The civic initiative Euromaidan SOS has reacted swiftly to plans by the Interior Ministry to name a law enforcement unit after Nebesna Sotnya – those killed during the Euromaidan protests.

Ukrainian prosecutor Oleh Valendyuk should have been out of a job last fall, the victim of a lustration law meant to clear away members of former President Viktor Yanukovych’s team after his ouster at the hands of pro-European protesters. Instead, Valendyuk holds a higher position than ever: he is the top prosecutor in the capital, Kyiv.

A year after the tragic riots and fire in Odesa on May 2, 2014, a top police official is facing charges and civic investigators have upheld their right to information which is of clear public importance. A draft bill has also been tabled which could waive charges for people accused only of participation in riots, increasing the chances of finding the organizers and initiators

For the second time in the space of a few weeks, investigative journalists probing corruption within the Interior Ministry have come under attack. The film crew was from the same programme whose findings recently led to the top Traffic Police official losing his job

A brief description of the changes due to take place this year in the Ukrainian police force

Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has just been forced to remove a second police associate after a damning report exposed fiddled records and the head of Ukraine’s traffic police living it up in style. Worryingly, he has promised only an ’internal inquiry’ into the extremely serious allegations.

A first court hearing is due on April 30 in connection with the Berkut riot police ambush of Automaidan activists in Jan 2014. Only one officer has been charged, although the names of those who took part in the beating up of activists and smashing of their cars are known. So too are their current positions in the police force

Not only have the ex-Berkut officers who beat up rights activist Konstantin Reutsky in January this year not been punished, but there are plans to award them for stopping a car with weapons, this giving the lies to claims that the men had been suspended pending an inquiry.

Civic and media organizations are demanding a full investigation into the incident on Thursday night when Luhansk human rights activist and correspondent for Informator.lg.ua, Kostyantyn Reulsky was beaten after he and two journalists were stopped by traffic police officers whom they believe to have been former Berkut officers.

Petro Fedchuk, ex-deputy head of the Kyiv Police on the run from prosecution for the violent dispersal of peaceful Maidan protesters may now be providing the same services to the Russian police. While others are also continuing to evade justice, some former Berkut officers are fighting side by side with Maidan activists defending Ukraine

Bitter déjà vu as the police of a Kyiv police station are accused of beating up an underage activist, keeping him in custody for what they claim was an attempt to destroy a Roshen chocolates kiosk, and long denying him access to a lawyer

For the first time in 18 years the government has adopted a package of proposals for reforming the Interior Ministry, and most importantly a Police Reform Development Strategy written by human rights activists

A former traffic police officer was sentenced on Wednesday, Dec 10 over his part in the overt persecution of AutoMaidan activists during the EuroMaidan protests. Both the prosecutor and the court, however, seemed intent on avoiding any evidence demonstrating that the orders came from much higher.

The recent appointment as Kyiv regional police head of Vadim Troyan, deputy commander of the Azov battalion and member of a neo-Nazi organization, is a serious and dangerous mistake.

“For the first time in the last 17 years a conceptual normative act has been adopted on police reform, and one that was drawn up by the human rights community!”.

Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday finally adopted Law №3541 which makes real reform of the Public Prosecutor’s Office possible. Considering that the reform was a condition of Ukraine’s joining the Council of Europe back in 1995, Ukraine’s legislators cannot be praised for fast work, but at least they got there.