Project «Monitoring of the election process-2004 at special election stations in penitentiary establishments»

The International association of human rights -- Ukrainian section (IAHR-US), with the financial support of embassies of Canada, the USA and Great Britain, realizes the project «Monitoring of the election process-2004 at special election stations in penitentiary establishments».

One of the elements of the project is the collection, analysis, systematization and publication of the information about the voting by the people, who are held in custody (establishments of criminal-executive system of the Department of Penitentiaries of Ukraine, special establishments of the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine, guardhouses and disciplinary battalions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine).

The mentioned collection of information was realized by involvement of more than hundred persons (official observers and representatives of mass media) to the activities in the framework of the project throughout Ukraine.

In accordance with the plan of realization of the project, the information, collected by the workers of the Project on 31 October, after the calculation of votes, was urgently passed to the Kyiv office of the IAHR-US with the purpose of its immediate publication.

However, the process of urgent receiving of this information was complicated with unforeseen phone calls to the Kyiv office of the IAHR-US (the phone number 235-34-35). These calls were not addressed to the IAHR-US or to any of its workers, but concerned the questions not connected with the activities of the organization. More often the persons, who called, tried to learn about the preliminary results of the election of the President of Ukraine. Sometimes they insisted that the number, by which they phoned, belonged to some department of the Central election commission.

There were other calls that also concerned the election: the callers did not try to learn about the results of the election, but stated that the workers of the IAHR «falsified the bulletins».

Some calls were abstract: somebody wanted to speak with Roman, to order pizza or merely to learn who was lifting the receiver by this phone number. The phone calls were heard every 2-3 seconds, so the line was completely blocked for the calls connected with the project activities.

The described phone «conversations» began about 11 p.m. and stopped after 1 a.m.

One of the callers informed that he had found this number on the site http://politikantrop.com.ua. Really, there was the number of the Kyiv office of the IAHR-US on the first page of this site. We will quote the message published on the site: «ATTENTION! URGENTLY! In the connection with probability of falsification of the election results we ask you to block the channel for communication of the «exacted protocols». Phone: 235-34-35. Call, do not give the opportunity to open the channel for falsifications!!!»

About 1 a.m. this appeal disappeared from the site «Politikantrop».

It should be noted that, in spite of everything, the IAHR-US managed to get the information planned by the project.