On Dec 19 the Pechersky District Court in Kyiv found Oleh Matiash guilty of assaulting a police officer during the scuffles outside the Cabinet of Ministers building on Nov 24

On Human Rights Day, Dec 10, the Kyiv Court of Appeal will be examining cases with direct significance for human rights and rule of law in Ukraine. A search carried out the day before with serious procedural infringements only fuels concern.

Please endorse this petition in defence of peaceful protesters and two journalists brutally beaten by Berkut riot police and now in custody on absurd charges.

It is sinister that the first 9 people arrested and remanded in custody for 2 months have nothing in common with the young masked louts who can be seen on videos outside the president’s administration on Bankova St.

Oleksandr is a 32-year-old design engineer He was remanded in custody for 2 months despite having a small daughter, and showing clear signs of the beating he received from Berkut officers while lying on the ground and showing no resistance

45-year-old Valery Garagutz is a journalist and the founder of the Dnipropetrovsk newspaper “Litsa”. Most importantly he was present on Bankova St in his capacity as a journalist, which did not stop law enforcement officers from using their truncheons on him.

27-year-old Yehor Previr was at the demonstration on Dec 1 together with his father and sister. They were separated after the disturbances had already begun, and all contact was lost with Yehor. They only learned that he was in hospital the next evening, and the police and doctors have refused to provide information about the head injuries and concussion almost certainly inflicted after Yehor’s detention

21-year-old Yaroslav Prytulenko was detained in custody for 2 months despite the fact that the allegations against him are based on statements for police officers who were not named and did not appear in court

31-year-old Serhiy Nuzhnenko works in retail and is an avid photographer. Over a number of years he has worked on a voluntary basis taking photos of the children in different children’s homes

40-year-old Yury Bolotov is a private businessman, and the former director of the rock group Okean Elza. He is married with two children. His wife and friends stress that he is very much a family man and not engaged in politics

38-year-old driver Vladislav Zahorovko [or Zagorovko] is married with three children, the youngest an infant. He is the only breadwinner of the family. Amnesty Internaitonal in Ukraine reports that he urgently requires an operation following injuries seemingly inflicted by the riot police on Dec 1

23-year-old Mykola Lazarevsky is an architectural student and an artist. There is video footage showing him being beaten by Berkut riot police and absolutely no evidence of any involvement in the disturbances

41-year-old Gennady Cherevko is from Lubny (Poltava oblast), and little is known about him except that he is married, with two children and not involved in politics at all. And that he was badly beaten by the Berkut riot police and then remanded in custody for 2 months. No evidence was provided to justify this

On Dec 6, Road Control [Dorozhny Kontrol] journalist Amdriy Dzyndzya was remanded in custody for 2 months accused of involvement in the disturbances on Bankova St on Dec 1. He becomes the latest of at least 10 people whose detention raises very serious concerns

While attention has deservedly been paid to the excessive use of force which the Berkut riot police have applied against peaceful protesters, other measures, including the worrying detention and criminal charges against 9 demonstraters are also aimed at crushing the protest and are equally unacceptable.

A dangerous stunt acted out by provocateurs and the Berkut riot police on Sunday outside the president’s administration on Bankova St has taken a sinister turn. On Dec. 3, 9 men, five of them still in hospital after being badly beaten by the riot police, were remanded in custody for 2 months

Two young students are facing 4 and 7 year prison sentences for a supposed robbery with violence based solely on a highly questionable identification

The trials are underway of three Ukrainians, one a university professor, charged with state treason (spying for China) over information gleaned from the Internet, then set out in a textbook. Two men have been in detention since 2011 although the investigators have not established when the said spying took place, nor provided any evidence that the Chinese businessman was in fact an intelligence agent. Being Chinese is really not enough.

Two young men - Oleksy Rud and Serhiy Chychotka - have been held in custody for almost two years, Professor Volodymyr Chumakov is facing the same charges of state treason through spying for China. What Ukraine’s SBU [Security Service] believe to be incriminating evidence is all presented below. These are the excerpts from Chumakov’s textbook, largely compiled from open resources, on the subject of railguns.

With the Deputy Prosecutor General seeking the dismissal of a Kyiv judge guilty of a number of acquittals, you might wonder if the latter had ignored conclusive evidence and set serial killers at large. Not in Ukraine where the Prosecutor regularly goes on the offensive when judges have the temerity to find the prosecution’s case unconvincing.