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The Tribunal for Putin (T4P) global initiative was set up in response to the all-out war launched by Russia against Ukraine in February 2022.

Practice of law enforcement: from personal experience

21.05.2000   
Georgiy Sushko, Zaporozhye
I am a side of a conflict on the right of ownership of a plot of land. This case has been lasting about three years. On 7 August 1998 I was summoned to an investigating officer. I did not come, because previously I had directed a letter in which I informed about the decision of the regional directorate of militia on the rejection of this investigating officer. Then, up to 8 December 1998, I was not summoned to any investigating officer.

At 6:40 hours on 8 December a militia car came to my flat. The reader must know that my flat is at the same time the office of Zaporozhye human rights protection organization ‘Union on human rights protection’, of which I am the coordinator. This perhaps explains somewhat harsh methods of my treatment. A militia captain Spravko pressed the buzzer on my door. When I opened the door, I saw a stranger in civil clothes who introduced himself as a militia officer and flashed some ID. I demanded to examine his ID and to check it by phoning to the militia precinct. In response the newcomer sprayed a gas balloon to my face and rushed into the flat. He acted as if he never read the law ‘On militia’, Articles 11 and 16 of which prohibit to come into the flat of a citizen without agreement of the latter.

Having rushed into the flat, captain Spravko handcuffed me and threw me on the floor in the bathroom. He did it in spite of the fact that I, a 67-year-old man and invalid of the second group in eyesight, did not resist him. I spent 3.5 hours on the floor, and my handcuffs were removed only after our arrival to this militia precinct. About 10 o’clock I, in slippers and light pajamas, was led outdoors, to winter cold, with arms handcuffed on the back. The neighbors were explained that I was a dangerous criminal and would be taken to the militia precinct.

During three days I was kept in the isolation block. For two days, 8 and 9 December, I was given neither food nor drink. The state of my health was such that a motor ambulance was summoned three times.

I tried to complain to the region prosecutor’s office. This resulted in transferring my complaint from one bureaucrat to another and, after a long loop, in a formal reply. The clique of law enforcing bureaucrats in our district is complaint-proof. I have directed another complaint to M.Potebenko, the General Prosecutor of Ukraine, and intend to inform Nina Karpacheva, the ombudsperson of Ukraine, about the arbitrary actions of law enforcers in our district.

It is especially sad that all this happened on the background of state celebration of the 50-year anniversary of the Universal Declaration on human rights.
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