Three police officers are on trial following the death of Yevhen Zvenigorodsky, left to die on a city square after an hour (at least) in a neighbouring police station. One of the accused is charged under Article 121 (torture)

Information about the public monitoring of conditions and human rights observance in police stations and some highly telling video footag

From 7 to 21 November 2011 around 50 Ukrainian NGOs will be taking part in a nationwide campaign entitled “The Police under Control” during which civic activists will carry out human rights monitoring of the police

Not one representative of a human rights organization is on the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Public Council attached to the MIA which is supposed to monitor human rights adherence by the police and in places of confinement

The opposition are demanding reports from the Head of the SBU [Security Service] Valery Khoroshkovsky and the Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Anatoly Mohylyov following Viktor Yanukovych’s public statement that armed attacks were being prepared against the authorities

Sashko Khomenko “doesn’t remember” most things and is clearly scared. Ihor Indylo’s parents both had conversations with the young man who had known Ihor most of his life, and say that he told them the truth about who caused Ihor’s death

More conflicting evidence in the examination into the death of Ihor Indylo, the young student who died of injuries he received in a Kyiv police cell in the earlier hours of what should have been his twentieth birthday

At the court hearing on Wednesday, the former Head of the Shevchenkivsky Police Station insisted that there had been nothing improper in Ihor’s detention, that he had been treated properly and that he simply died after “falling”.

Despite promises to Ihor Indylo’s mother that the whole truth would be uncovered about how her son died in police custody only hours after entering in perfectly good health, the Prosecutor is continuing to push a police version which seems at odds with the video footage we can all view

The European Roma Rights Centre has approached Ukraine’s Prosecutor General and Minister of Internal Affairs regarding reports that police officers are unlawfully taking fingerprints and carrying out checks in a discriminatory fashion of Roma people

There are plans to reinstate public human councils dissolved by the present MIA management. Experts from the Association of Ukrainian Monitors of Human Rights Observance by the Police are convinced that public monitoring of police activities is vital in protecting citizens from police lawlessness.

The Constitutional Court has issued a judgement which effectively eliminates the Melnychenko tapes as evidence in any attempt to prosecute former President Kuchma over the killing of journalist Georgy Gongadze.

As reported, Oleksandr Zarutsky, the lawyer representing Ihor Indylo’s family has repeatedly asked - unsuccessfully - for the case to receive further examination. He and the family believe that the police story does not tally with the video footage

The many problems not addressed include the lack of clear definition of “malicious disobedience” which the police can therefore use as they choose, and the practice of avoiding formal processing of detention, leaving a person without any protection

The Constitutional Court has restricted the period a person can be held in custody without a court order to three days and stated that the police do not have the right to detain people for disobeying their orders

On 11 October journalists from the Korrespondent journal and Kommersant – Ukraine were injured by Berkut riot offices outside the Pechersky District Court in Kyiv where the verdict was being read out against former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko

In an article for Ukrainska Pravda, Kateryna Kaplyuk writes that the Security Service [SBU] have had “chats” with journalists doing practice at Deutsche Welle

The Ukrainian authorities must act immediately to deal with endemic police criminality, Amnesty International wrutes in a new report that reveals widespread torture, extortion, and arbitrary detention

Higher salaries and better conditions, without real reform will mean only that detainees are tortured or beaten in newly-painted premises, Volodymyr Yavorsky, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union warns

The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office has detained 2 officers from the Loziv Police Station on suspicion of “professional negligence causing death”. This follows the death of a Loziv resident Laslo Kolomparov who supposedly fell from a police station window