All Blog Posts (923)

The widow of murdered journalist Georgy Gongadze has slammed the ruling of the Kyiv Court of Appeal on 20 January 2012 upholding the Pechersky District Court’s ruling of  14 December 2011.  The latter quashed the criminal proceedings against former Presidentt Kuchma in connection with Georgy Gongadze’s murder. The court had cited a Constitutional Court judgement from October 2011which stated that prosecutions could not be based on information received through investigative operations carried…

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Ukraine’s leaders have seldom demonstrated much understanding or respect for the presumption of innocence. That fundamental element of any justice system is in fact, widely ignored in Ukraine with the rot beginning in police press reports and all too often circulated in copy paste mode through the media.

Within hours of a bloody attack on a VIP branch of PrivatBank in Donetsk…

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After today's decision by the Constitutional Court, Ukrainian journalists might face a fine of (at least) 500 non-taxable minimum income or up to 5 years’ imprisonment for the…

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Hearings have begun in the District Administrative Court in Kyiv into a civil suit brought by Ukrainska Pravda journalist Serhiy Leshchenko against the Ministry of Finance.

Serhiy Leshchenko filed the suit over the refusal by the Ministry to provide a copy of its letter of 16 June 2011 addressed to the Cabinet of Ministers regarding…

Ukraine, according to Freedom House, suffered the deepest regression in democracy of any major country during the past two years. It is the second consecutive year that Freedom House marked a decline in political rights and civil liberties in Ukraine.

“Ukraine suffered a major decline due to President Viktor Yanukovych’s moves to crush the political opposition through a variety of anti-democratic tactics, including the prosecution of opposition political leader and former Prime…

The international human rights organizations Article 19 and International Media Support (IMS) have called on the authorities of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia to take every legal and political measure needed to protect journalists and defend the right to freedom of expression in these countries.

"We recommend establishing effective cooperation between human rights organizations and journalist organizations for the provision of mutual…

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Ukraine continues to languish in a leading global index of economic freedom, despite promises of reform from President Viktor Yanukovych. 

The 2012 Index of Economic Freedom, a joint project by the U.S.-based think…

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According to Denis Ivanesko from the President’s Administration, the Presidential greetings positioned around the country are there on the basis of…

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On Friday the Verkhovna Rada voted to remove journalist and BYUT MP from his post as Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information.  The motion was supported by 187 representatives of the Party of the Regions; 20 from Lytvyn’s Party; 10 non-faction; 2 from Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defence; 25 from the Communist Party and I from “Reform for the Future”.

The…

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Ihor Indylo    …

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Mikalay Statkevich sits in the defendant’s cage before the start of his trial in Minsk in May.

SHKLOU, Belarus --…

The police have reported initiating four criminal investigations over «hooliganism” into the daubing with pain of billboards showing President Yanukovych. The billboards have been damaged thus far in Kyiv, Lviv, Zaporizhya and the Rivne region.  The…

According to a Justice Ministry Order, from 5 January the Ministry will bring administrative proceedings over the use of unregistered normative legal acts by heads of executive bodies and local state administrations. Analysts are sceptical that this is in order to create order.

The Justice Minister Oleksandr Lavrynovych explains on the Ministry’s website that with the new amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences now on the above-mentioned heads who infringe the rules on…

“I remember what the report said – we said that the radio took money for advertisement time and had Ramaz Samkharadze’s commentary saying the same,” Courier producer GIorgi Laperashvili says. 

In relation to the given issue Mate Kirvalidze, head of Imedi TV information program told media.ge:  “We do not comment…

As we know, during the vote on the UN Resolution adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the USSR and its satellites abstained. The Ukrainian State is continuing to abstain to this day.

If between 2005 and 2009 we reported that government policy on human rights was ineffective, unsystematic and chaotic, today we are forced to state that during the last two years there has been no such government policy at all, and human rights are not a priority for the leaders of the…

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Photo: Berkut riot officers against peaceful demonstrators (UNIAN)

According to the former Speaker of the Belarusian Parliament, Stanislav Shushkevich, Russia and Ukraine are following…

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Brussels, 13 December 2011

During my visit to Ukraine, I have met with President Yanukovych of Ukraine, Deputy Prime Minister Klyuyev and Foreign Minister Gryschenko. I also had the opportunity to visit former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the Batkivshchyna Party, who is currently in…

Parliament’s ruling majority has again proved its ability to work with conveyor belt efficiency. A draft bill submitted by President Yanukovych on 23 November regarding the Security Service [SBU] was adopted on 9 December.  Since the President’s veto on his own bill is hardly likely, it would seem that a new division within the SBU has been created with authorization to defend the “legitimate interests of the State “in the information security sphere”.  

The adoption of …

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Thousands of people have attended the biggest anti-government rally in the Russian capital Moscow since the fall of the Soviet Union.

As many as 50, 000 people gathered on an island near the Kremlin to condemn alleged ballot-rigging in parliamentary elections and demand a re-run.

Other, smaller rallies took place in St Petersburg and other cities.

Communists, nationalists…

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The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union has for the sixth year running marked Human Rights Day (10 December) by identifying the worst violators of human rights during the year and awarding them its Thistle of the Year Anti-Prize. 

This year’s “Gold Thistle” has been awarded to Viktor Yanukovych, President of Ukraine, for systematic use of his powers to restrict rights and…