today 20.06.2013 02:36
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If passed, a new draft law from the Party of the Regions MP who recently tried to recriminalize libel will heighten the very real threat at present of anti-terrorist measures becoming part of the arsenal of weapons used for propaganda purposes or against opponents of the regime. 
A number of human rights organizations including KHPG have expressed concern over the detention of three police officers in the Kharkiv SIZO who used special means against a drunk and brawling judge 
According to Oleksandr Boichuk from the Centre for Political and Legal Reform, since the new Criminal Procedure Code came into force around 12.5 thousand of the approximately 32 thousand people held in SIZO [pre-trial detention centres] have been released. 
Ivan Nechiporuk spent almost 8 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. The only evidence against him was 5 “confessions” which the European Court of Human Rights found to have been beaten out of him through the use of torture 
Valeria Burlakova writes in the journal Ukrainsky Tyzhden that suspended sentences and application of amnesties are standard practice in Ukraine for criminal cases against police officers. 
The Commission reiterates previously expressed concern that the role of parliament must not be undermined. It states that "the most problematic provisions in the law under examination concern the possibility to hold referendums on popular initiative on a new Constitution or constitutional amendments." 
Five US Senators have co-authored a resolution calling for the release of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko following the recent European Court of Human Rights judgment. 
Serhiy Vlasenko, fomer MP and defender of Yulia Tymoshenko, controversially stripped of his mandate in March, may again be facing criminal charges, with the impetus supposedly having come from his former wife, Natalya Okunska 
Only 20% of the political news on TVi in May was presented from several points of view, as opposed to 44% in April, with an unprecedented reduction in balance on TVi, up till 23 April seen as the most independent TV channel in Ukraine 
KHPG is calling for urgent measures to ensure that a detainee receive medical treatment and that the court considers a different preventive measure. 
Despite the progressive nature of the provisions in Article 39 of Ukraine’s Constitution, implementation of freedom of peaceful assembly remains unsatisfactory in Ukraine 
A serious case of chemical poisoning has taken place in Krasnopolye, Dnipropetrovsk oblast, and once again it is environmentalists who are forced to sound the alarm. 
The Partnership “For Freedom of Peaceful Assembly” points out that information provided by the Deputy Interior Minister regarding a ban on wearing masks in the draft bill on freedom of peaceful assembly is not correct. It also rejects any such ban as being an infringement on people’s rights 
Donetsk analysts and human rights workers concur in their view that the police are not coping with their law-defending function and are to blame for their bad image 
With Ukraine’s judges largely cowered or enticed into line, an offensive has been underway for the past 8 months against the country’s advocates. The weapons deployed are increasingly reminiscent of Orwell’s 1984, and appear to be targeting all vestiges of freedom of speech and independence of views. 
On 11 June a team of well-known journalists announced the creation of Hromadskie.TV, a public broadcasting Internet initiative based on the principles of transparency and total independence 
The assailants demanded that Georgy Erman chant some nationalist slogans while they videoed it, and threatened him for having, as they claimed, insulted nationalists in his articles 
On Tuesday within hours of each other, the State Duma’s lower house of Parliament passed bills to criminalize blasphemy and outlaw activism by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) individuals and their supporters. 
There are a lot of questions unanswered regarding the trial of four men over bomb blasts just before Euro 2012, however the case of Dmitry Reva is extraordinary even by Ukrainian standards. There is no motive, no proof and the impugned offence involves behaviour which would have been manifestly pointless 
Unlike administrative resource, thugs and cynical "antifascist" rhetoric, imagination was in short supply at the 18 May “antifascist demonstration” in Kyiv. While VO Svoboda ideological consistency does not make its bigoted views any more palatable, the Party of the Regions was still stupendously uncovincing 
President Yanukovych has said that no pardon can be granted until all criminal proceedings in the Tymoshenko cases have been concluded with this once again fuelling doubts about the competence of his advisers, both political and legal 
Despite no evidence aside from multiple “confessions” retracted in court and grave irregularities, two sacristans of the Svyatopokrovsk Orthodox Church in Zaporizhya, and brother of one of them, have been convicted of the 2010 bomb blast in the Church and sentenced to 15 and 14 years respectively 
Attempts to prosecute former opposition parliamentary candidate, Viktor Romanyuk, who was the clear leader until Party of the Regions candidate Zasukha got results in some polling precincts cancelled make any assurances given at the summit seem depressingly empty 
The introduction of named railway tickets and the gathering of information about passengers’ movements infringe the right to privacy. Nobody has informed passengers of such a database, and has not asked for their consent to having data about their travels inserted and retained 
First Deputy Prosecutor General, Renat Kuzmin wants to criminalize “defamation”, which, unlike libel, can include true statements. At least within shooting range of Ukraine’s Criminal Code, this would silence all those unpleasant accusations of selective justice, judicial dependence etc 
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