Journalist parliamentary candidate assaulted

Tetyana Chornovil, a well-known journalist who is standing for parliament in a single-mandate electoral district (from the United Opposition) was beaten on Saturday while trying to find out the origin of fake leaflets purporting to be from her.

Ms Chornovil told Ukrainska Pravda that 100 thousand such leaflets had been produced in the No. 120 electoral district in the Lviv oblast where she is standing for election.  The leaflets claiming to be from her ask for donations to be put into an account number which she does not know. Having found out about them, Tetyana Chornovil went to the village of Mshana where the leaflets had been handed out from three cars. Three cars came towards her as she drove into the village. She stopped, went up to the nearest car and saw the leaflets in it.  She decided to get into the car to stop them while her assistant called the police.

She says that in the car they started hitting her and trying to choke her. Then they threw her out of the car, smashed the assistant’s face against the car bonnet and drove off.

When the police turned up, a car drove passed with people who looked like those handing out the leaflets. The police stopped the car and found the leaflets.  However the people said that they’d just been given 50 UAH each to hand them out.

Ms Chornovil points out that the people who beat her spoke Russian which is not usual in the Lviv oblast.  Those detained are, on the other hand, from Lviv. She suspects that they were specially sent there to take the blame.