“Stop Censorship!” to hold protest against SBU activities

The protest is scheduled for Wednesday, 29 September at 13.45. Journalists, civic activists and all others concerned will be queuing up at the SBU public reception office to hand in formal requests for information. The information requested will be whether with respect to each person submitting them the SBU has over the last year gathered any information, carried out any investigative operations, tapped phone calls, organized surveillance or carried out any other activities.

“Journalists and civic activists are demanding that the Head of the SBU, Valery Khoroshkovsky put a stop to harassment of civic activists and public explain such actions by his subordinates. They are also calling on President Yanukovych, as Guarantor of the Constitution, to personally intercede in this matter”, their press release states.

As reported, on Friday Victoria Syumar, Director of the Institute for Mass Information, publicly asked the SBU to stop terrifying the concierge of the block of apartments where she lives. SBU would seem to have asked for information about who lived in and visited her flat (cf.  Head of IMI asks Security Service to not intimidate her concierge

On 21 September the civic organization “Democratic Alliance” announced that it had received a telephone call from a person who “identified himself as an SBU officer and invited us to a meeting where he asked questions about the sources of financing both of the Cherkasy regional branch of the Democratic Alliance and the central management bodies of the organization”  (cf. http://khpg.org/en/1285276209 ) Later the SBU warned Democratic Alliance of liability for publicly circulating information about their visit with supposedly “distorted facts”.

(Since the SBU are moving the public reception office this week, details for where to gather on Wednesday will be finalized on Tuesday evening (details can be obtained from Stop Censorship Press Centre Coordinator, Artyom Sokolenko on 050 440 46 08)