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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.

Witch hunters are stopped, but not punished

13.12.2002   
Oleksiy Svetikov, Severodonetsk
The author describes a typical case: how Oleksandr Zarvovskiy, the principal of Severodonetsk school, was persecuted for his participation in the opposition meeting.
Oleksandr Zarvovskiy, the principal of Severodonetsk school No. 11, a deputy of the town council, was fired. He recklessly took part in the meeting on 7 November rebellious from the point of view of the town authorities.

As it is known 7 November of this year was a workday. In order to participate in the meeting and to have the opportunity to deliver the speech to his party-mates – socialists – Mr. Zavrovskiy handed the corresponding application to the head of the Severodonetsk education directorate. He asked to release him from his duties during the meeting and to pass his duties to his deputy.

However, on 12 November O. Zarvovskiy got a reprimand. In the opinion of the education directorate, he violated labor discipline, when he wrote the application not on a clean sheet of paper, but on a deputy’s blank. Moreover, although the directorate received the application in time, it was not considered yet at the time, when the meeting began, so the education bosses did not permit the principal to participate in meeting.

The order on the discipline penalty of the principal was directed to the mandate deputies’ commission, which is headed by Raisa Kravchenko, the deputy head of the town education directorate. The commission agreed with the order.

According to the rules of Severodonetsk ’democracy’ opposition is not just punished, but destroyed. The ink did not dry in the signature under he order, when a commission attended the school in order to control financial and administrative questions. They knew what to look for: several last expenditures from the school fund were not yet processed properly. Although there were misuses, and all the money collected by parents were spent according to the decision of the school parent council, it sufficed to issue on 17 November the order of the principal’s dismissal.

The order on Zarvovskiy’s dismissal was approved by town mayor Volodymir Gritsyshin after the request of the head of the education directorate and after the consent of the permanent commission in charge of deputies’ activities according to Article 28 of the Ukrainian Law ’On the status of deputies of local radas’. Democratic public in the town assessed this story as a typical ’witch hunt’, that is persecution for political convictions. Some deputies of the local rada did not stay uninvolved. They protested against the mayor’s approval and managed to recall it in the second attempt.

The session proposed to vote the question about the consent of the town rada session with Zarvovskiy’s dismissal. The deputies voted ’against’ almost unanimously.

In my opinion, such decision means that the mayor’s approval of the dismissal was formally recalled and that the court must reestablish the principal according to Article 28 of the Ukrainian Law ’On the status of deputies of local radas’.

Certainly, no one questioned the mayor’s responsibility for this approval of the illegal actions of his subordinates. Maybe in three months voters will recollect the mayor’s behavior. They are not so foolish as Mr. Gritsyshin thinks.
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