It is terrifying – and unacceptable – to think that in today’s Ukraine those who expose inconvenient information of public importance can be killed. Please endorse the following appeal

It is manifestly clear that any attempts to conceal information about the contaminated scrap metal that Volodymyr Honcharenko reported could adversely affect the investigation into the murder of this well-known civic and environmental activist.

The authorities have virtually not responded at all to the murder of the well-known Dnipropetrovsk environmentalist and civic activist Volodymyr Honcharenko. There were no words of sympathy, no promises to investigate the crime, bring those responsible to justice.

ARTICLE 19 calls on the Ukrainian government to publicly condemn the killing of environmental information activist, Volodymyr Honcharenko as a crime against free speech and ensure that those responsible are brought to justice via an independent and transparent process

Disturbingly little is heard about Volodymyr Honcharenko’s murder and there are worrying signs that for whatever reasons not all those in authority appear to want the truth to come out and those responsible to be held to answer.

Front Line Defenders strongly condemns the killing of Volodymyr Honcharenko and believes that it is directly linked to his legitimate activities as an environmental rights defender, particularly in light of reports from his colleagues that he had been threatened before.

Environmental and human rights activists have responded to the murder of renowned environmentalist Volodymyr Honcharenko with sorrow and anger. They demand a full and objective investigation and that the government ensures that all civic activists are able to carry out their work freely and in safety.

Public attention is needed to ensure that neither the murder of environmentalist Volodymyr Honcharenko, nor the terrible danger he exposed are quietly ignored

At a press conference on 27 July 2012, four days before he was fatally injured in a brutal attack, Volodymyr Honcharenko warned of highly toxic heat exchangers which environmentalists fear could be mixed with other scrap metal and sold, possibly abroad

Volodymyr Honcharenko, environmentalist and Head of the NGO “For Citizens’ Right to a Safe Environment” has died in hospital following a brutal attack four days after a press conference where he made public information about 180 tonnes of chemically contaminated and radioactive metal waste in Kryvy Rih

The Supreme Court on 29 May 2012 closed the book on a six-year judicial battle over the natural reserve Granite-Steppe Pobuzhya in the Mykolaiv region

The journalist and activist were brutally set upon by workers taking part in the new wave of wanton and entirely illegal destruction of Kharkiv’s Gorky Park

Mayor Kernes’ explanation made after the felling was discovered is not backed by paperwork nor is it in the plan for reconstruction of Gorky Park. Protesters are on vigil at the site where 200 trees have already been felled

A belt of trees running parallel to the new road and much wider than during the illegal felling in May-June 2010 have been cut down and environmentalists fear that the plan to build elite arpartments and entertainment complexes has not, as claimed, been abandoned

A meeting was held in parliament on 19 June regarding changes to a draft law which all Ukrainian environmental groups are agreed would spell disaster for any real environmental protection in the country

The environmental draft law slammed by environmental NGOs as destroying any mechanisms in Ukraine for environmental protection has been slipped through at first “reading” in the wake of conflict over the highly contentious bill on language

Environmentalists are concerned by apparent plans to appoint a local deputy Director of the national nature park Homilshanski Forests since the latter in 2010 initiated a petition to get the park removed from the nature reserve fund.

A dangerous bill proposing to redistribute powers with respect to environmental protection could give corruption and plundering in Ukraine a whole new dimension

The draft law proposes amendments which would assign the Cabinet of Ministers and local administrations an excessive role in deciding on the use of natural resources, environmental impact assessments and others

In the evening of Monday 12 March Volodymyr Kramarenko, one of the defenders of a forest area planted in the 1950s, was attacked