Of 115 police officers spoken to in Kharkiv, none had heard of the 1400 electronic translators supposedly purchased to facilitate communication with guests to the country, and many did not even have elementary phrasebooks

It would appear that the law enforcement agencies have at least in the case of Ihor Koliushko manufactured a letter giving them an excuse for carrying out checks on business enterprises

Kostyantin Usov, TVi journalist and producer of the programme “Lukyanivka. Prison No. 1” has posted a blog on Ukrainska Pravda in which he offers a 15 thousand UAH reward for information about the people who attacked one of the people in his film.

The First Deputy Head of Ukraine’s Security Service [SBU] and Head of the Central Department for Fighting Corruption and Organized Crime, Volodymyr Rozhytsky wears a watch that would have cost him more than his year’s salary

Former political prisoner, psychiatrist and human rights defender, Semyon Gluzman has intervened and got Mykolayev pensioner Anatoly Ilchenko out of the Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital in Kyiv

The latest hearing in the trial of Yakiv Strogan was supposed to take place on Wednesday but was postponed for the second time because the new forensic medical report ordered 4 months ago is still not ready.

Amnesty International has repeatedly highlighted examples of ill-treatment in Ukrainian police custody © Amnesty International

The Kyiv Court of Appeal has ordered further investigation in the criminal prosecution of two police officers charged of involvement in the death of Ihor Indylo in the Shevchenkivsky Police Station in Kyiv in May 2010. It has thus allowed the application from Ihor’s parents and the lawyer representing them

An interview with Kharkiv lawyer Serhiy Medvedev, whose name has often appeared here in connection with his defence of Yakiv Strogan in which Mr Medvedev talks about that case, the reasons why there are so few acquittals in Ukraine, and the rule of law he wants his grandchildren to know

Oleksandr Bukalov from Donetsk Memorial, an organization particularly active in upholding prisoners’ rights has responded to the Prosecutor General’s recent public statement about the bruises on imprisoned opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko

On 10 May the results were presented of the nationwide monitoring campaign “Police under Scrutiny» which began this year on 31 March in 12 oblasts after a pilot run in November last year

Ukraine gets a pitifult 2.4 out of 10 in the Transparency International rating, while for 10,000 vehicles there are 104.4 road deaths. In Finland, where the corruption index stands at 9.2, there are only 8.2 road deaths for the same number of vehicles.

Amnesty International has reiterated its call for reform of the Ukrainian police force ahead of Euro 2012 following the severe beating and robbery of two young men by six officers in Lviv on 21 April.

Fellow members of the congregation held a picket with a sign reading “They torture people here” after two members of the Church of Evangelical Baptists were allegedly subjected to blows, abuse and threats by officers of the Zarichny Police Station.

Azad Safarov from TV Channel 5 lodged a complaint after Zeva elbowed him in the face and then pushed his hand with the microphone away several times very roughly when the journalist tried to find out his name and position

In March 2011 32-year-old Yevhen Zvenigorodsky was taken out of a Kharkiv police station and left to die on a city square

On 2 April a man in Mykolaiv deliberately drove his car into Vitaly Kosenko, a journalist from Dorozhny Kontrol [Road Control] – a website which monitors the work of the traffic police and breaches of drivers’ rights.

From 31 March to 8 April 2012 volunteers will be checking whether police patrols and police stations in all regions of Ukraine are conducting their work in conscientious and lawful manner.

Serhiy Kostakov, who spent seven and a half months in custody from December 2010 charged with blocking the road and damaging a car during the mass peaceful protest against the new Tax Code in November 2010, is presently in a European country where he has asked for asylum

Concern over the activities of the SBU [Security Service] under its new former KGB boss has been heightened by news in one week of two bursts of activity which seem aimed at intimidation rather than protecting national security