Week in memoriam of Georgiy Gongadze
12.12.2001
The action under this motto devoted to the birthday of Gongadze is conducted by some Lugansk journalists and politicians. They put up six tents in front of the building of Lugansk executive committee. The newspaper ‘XXI vek’, ‘The independent order of journalists’, parties UNR, PRP, ‘Young Rukh’, public committee ‘For truth’, Public committee for protecting local self-rule and Communist union of youth take part in the action. The executive committee turned to the Leninskiy district court with the claim to prohibit the action, demanding to conduct it in the stadium ‘Avangard’. On 15 may the court decided that the action was illegal and that the tent camp had to be removed. Yet, on the same day the organizers of the action handed the second request to have the same action on the same place. They consider that this is another action, and it should be prohibited by another court decision. They plan to hand such requests everyday, if needed. It is noteworthy that the majority of Lugansk newspapers describe these events in the tone offensive for the participants of the action, asserting that it was organized to support town mayor Anatoliy Yagoferov, whose power was suspended by the town council.
Our commentary: we are sure that a number of court decisions prohibiting peaceful gatherings of citizen that were taken in the Lugansk oblast (we have information about five such decisions) testify that the Ukrainian court system violates universally acknowledged human rights. We appeal to human rights protection activists of Ukraine with the proposition to consider the expediency of turning to the Council of Europe with the joint suggestion to exclude Ukraine from this organization as a state that does not fulfil its obligations concerning human rights protection. At the same time we must confess that the participants of the Lugansk actions did not fulfil the court decision, thus ignoring the law like the town council. This is a dangerous situation, gentlemen, when the both sides ignore the law.
Our commentary: we are sure that a number of court decisions prohibiting peaceful gatherings of citizen that were taken in the Lugansk oblast (we have information about five such decisions) testify that the Ukrainian court system violates universally acknowledged human rights. We appeal to human rights protection activists of Ukraine with the proposition to consider the expediency of turning to the Council of Europe with the joint suggestion to exclude Ukraine from this organization as a state that does not fulfil its obligations concerning human rights protection. At the same time we must confess that the participants of the Lugansk actions did not fulfil the court decision, thus ignoring the law like the town council. This is a dangerous situation, gentlemen, when the both sides ignore the law.