Section: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (Ukraine)
Political Shenanigans to the End: Ukraine’s Parliament elects their own MP as ‘Human Rights Ombudsman’
“The Ombudsman is not a commodity and parliament is not a bazaar!”. That was the message from Ukrainian rights activists this week, and one that Ukraine’s parliamentarians have now ignored. On March 15, a politician was elected to the post by her colleagues through procedure in open breach of the Law on the Human Rights Ombudsperson...
Ukraine is putting persecuted journalist’s life in danger
“If I am killed or kidnapped or extradited to Azerbaijan in the near future, all responsibility lies with the Ukrainian authorities”. Azerbaijani journalist Fikret Huseynli had serious grounds for making this sombre warning, and for asking bitterly how he has deserved such appalling treatment from Ukraine. He is not the only journalist whose...
Death brought to Donetsk under a Russian Flag
Ukrainians gathered in Kyiv on March 13 to remember the first victim of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine in Donbas, and all other civilians killed during the senseless conflict. Many of those present had themselves been forced into exile or fled for their lives after Russian and Russian-backed militants seized control in March –...
Dead Souls for Putin: Even Death Statistics are Fiddled in Russia
There has been a significant fall in the number of deaths from cardio-vascular illness, tuberculosis and cancer in Russia. That’s if you believe the Potemkin statistics, and don’t ask too many questions about the increase in deaths from a number of other illnesses, as well as from ‘unknown causes’ since one of Putin’s ‘May...
The Truth Behind Ukraine’s Language Policy
On February 28, Ukraine’s Constitutional Court ruled the bill “On the principles of the state language policy” unconstitutional and rendered it invalid. The law in question, adopted back in 2012 and known as the “Kivalov-Kolesnichenko language law,” granted Russian the status of a “regional language.” …read more Source: Kharkiv...
Crimean Tatars threatened with dismissal for not taking part in illegal Russian ‘elections’
Nobody seriously doubts the outcome of Russia’s presidential ‘elections’ on 18 March, but Vladimir Putin does not want a pitiful turnout to mar the beginning of his fourth official term in office. Just like in Soviet times, all efforts are underway to persuade or force people to give the right veneer to this electoral farce,...
Ukrainian ‘C14’ Neo-Nazis openly offer to act as thugs for money
Ukraine’s far-right ‘C14′ organization is trying to entice ‘donors’ by offering to make trouble for the latter’s ‘enemies’. The advertisement on their Facebook page may not break the law, but is certainly alarming from an organization which at least one Kyiv local authority is using to help ‘keep the peace’....
Ukrainian anti-corruption journalists attacked, then charged with ‘invading privacy’ of Putin associate Medvedchuk
Ukraine’s National Police have initiated a criminal investigation into claims that journalists from the Skhemy anti-corruption program violated the right to privacy of controversial Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk. The move comes soon after criminal charges were brought against guards who tried to prevent the journalists from...
Torture in Eastern Ukraine—and What Comes After It
Oleksiy Kanarskyy, a twenty-five-year old Ukrainian, never thought he would celebrate January 1 in freedom. His hopes had faded during three years of detention in the conflict zone in eastern Ukraine, after endless promises of a prisoners’ exchange between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatists …read more Source:...
Sinister attempt in Ukraine to arrest / abduct opposition Azerbaijani journalist Fikret Huseynli
An attempt was made in Kyiv on March 5 to detain Fikret Huseynli, a journalist working in exile for an opposition channel, and facing a baffling ‘extradition check’ in Ukraine. Huseynli received political asylum and later citizenship in Holland and there is no way that Ukraine can legally extradite him to Azerbaijan. The events on 5 March,...
