Why the unlawful dismissal of Piskun and response to the court’s reinstatement suggest lingering ills in the attitude to the rule of law.

The report compares the state of affairs with regard to human rights over the ‘Kuchma era’ and in 2005. Interrelated trends are considered which defined the ever more flagrant violations of human rights under the 10 years of Kuchma’s regime, with a brief analysis of the same trends in 2005.

A blow for monitoring of telecommunications?

On 27 September 2005 in Kyiv “Amnesty International” presented its report “Ukraine. The time to act: Torture and cruel treatment of people detained by the police”. It speaks of an alarming situation as regards the observance of the rights of those detained by the Ukrainian police and gives details of various incidences where torture has been applied. One such case involved Mykhailo Koval from Chernihiv.

We need a regime and State officials who can understand the need for transparency and open information, as well as an understanding in the population of the value and importance of such information.

The Ternopil region prosecutor’s office accused Anatoliy Zhukinskiy, the head of the Ternopil regional administration, of large-scale misappropriation of budget funds. Corporative deputies’ protection saved him from criminal charges...

On 2 November the Novozavodsk district court of Chernihiv passed its verdict on the claim of Volodymyr Ovsienko against two former district police officers. The interests of the claimant were represented by Oleksandr Trofimov, a lawyer of the Chernihiv Civic Committee for the Protection of Human Rights.

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favor of Ukrainian citizens in 13 more claims against Ukraine.

The Kharkiv group for human rights protection, together with the public organization “Koreni travy” have launched a large-scale public investigation within the framework of the project “Access to information on the activities of State bodies"

The Chamber of Accounting of Ukraine has found that State funding on penal institutions and implementing the 2004 reforms is being used unsystematically and often not for the purposes intended.

The deputy mayor of a town in the Mykolaiv region has been exposed for rigging voting papers during the second round of Presidential elections.

Some information about access to information held by State bodies in the United Kingdom and France.

An Appeal from members of the human rights movement of the 1960s to 80s and former prisoners of conscience to the President of Ukraine, calling on him to use the powers vested in him by the People, to prevent dangerous amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine.