SBU claims security considerations over Lange incident

Ukraine’s Security Service has refused to explain the reasons for the attempt on 26 June to ban entry to Nico Lange.

As reported, Nico Lange, the director of the Kyiv Office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation was detained at Kyiv Airport for around 10 hours. He was not informed of the reasons, only that the action was on the instructions of the SBU and was only allowed into the country he is presently resident in after the intervention of the German Embassy and his organization. Mr Lange had recently been a high-profile figure because of an article and interviews given at the beginning of June suggesting a worrying increase in authoritarian tendencies in Ukraine.

The Internet publication “Ukrainska Pravda” has published a letter from the Acting Head of the SBU Volodymyr Khimei to a request for information from the National Deputy Lesya Orobets. It states:

“Nico Lange was prohibited entry to Ukraine by the Security Service on the basis of paragraph two of part two of Article 25 of the Law on the Legal Status of Foreign Nationals and Stateless Persons. According to the Law on Information it is not possible to provide you with a copy of the SBU resolution banning Lange’s entry into Ukraine”. The part of Article 25 quoted reads: “a foreign national or stateless person shall not be permitted into Ukraine in the interests of Ukraine’s national security or to protect public order”.

New information from  http://pravda.com.ua/news/2010/07/23/5243624/