Ukraine opposition alleges ongoing persecution

Throughout the nation, EuroMaidan activists are being called in for questioning by the Prosecutor General, Security Service of Ukraine and Internal Affairs Ministry, said on Dec. 16 Oleh Tiahnybok, chair of the nationalist Svoboda party. Moreover, some activists remain under arrest despite the president’s promises to Western leaders to arrange for their release. Journalist Dmytro Tuzov reported strangers approached the door of his resident the night of Dec. 16, demanding that he emerge while ripping out a video camera and setting fire to his rug.

More than 72 percent of those participating in the EuroMaidan protest are prepared to stay for as long as needed, according to a poll conducted by the Democratic Initiatives polling firm in Kyiv. Any partial rotation of Cabinet officials won’t resolve the political crisis, Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reform Party Chair Vitali Klitschko told reporters on Dec. 16. The entire Cabinet will need to be dismissed, he said.

Ukrainian Customs Service officials stopped on Dec. 16 diplomacy expert Vasyl Filipchuk at Kyiv’s Boryspil airport, ordering him not to travel to Brussels, where he was to travel to participate in an international conference on Ukraine involving EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fule, the opposition Fatherland party reported that day. Having served as the director of the European integration department at the Cabinet of Ministers, Filipchuk rejected claims made by government officials that the Association Agreement was poorly prepared and has criticized the government for rejecting the EU Association Agreement.

No evidence was found of National Security and Defense Council Secretary Andriy Kliuyev’s role in the Nov. 30 violent dispersal of Independence Square (Maidan) in Kyiv, Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Bilous said on Dec. 17. He answered prosecutors’ questions after the dismissed Kyiv City State Administration Chair Oleksandr Popov alleged he received an order from Kliuyev to forcefully disperse the Maidan.

The Committee of Voters of Ukraine, an election monitoring organization financed by Western grants, said the Dec. 15 revote to determine the representatives of five parliamentary election districts didn’t meet the standards and principles of democratic elections. Opposition leaders also said they won’t recognize the results of four of five contested districts in the election that was supposed to resolve the failure to establish results from the October 2012 parliamentary vote. They alleged widescale fraud, such as vote-buying, and questionable maneuvers, such as prohibiting obnserves at polling stations and removing opposition candidates (Fatherland favorite Viktor Romaniuk was denied eligibility by a court during the social unrest on Dec. 1).

Zenon Zawada: All these incidents and claims serve as evidence that there’s no end in sight to this political crisis. We have said it will last for weeks, but that could easily extend into months given that neither side is willing to compromise. Prosecutors’ conclusion that Kliuyev wasn’t involved in the planning of the Nov. 30 attack on protesters has been contradicted by numerous key political players, who said the order for such an assault had to come from the highest rungs of government.