today 24.05.2013 01:02
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Human Rights in Ukraine Information website of the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group |
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All fears expressed back in July 2010 with regard to the so-called judicial reform have proven justified, while some of the few improvements made then are now being cancelled 
MEPs on 24 May passed a resolution about the situation in Ukraine and called for the unconditional immediate release of all prisoners sentenced on politically motivated grounds, including leaders of the opposition 
Rimma Bilotserkivska who has an arrest warrant from 22 May hanging over her is not the criminal type. Nor is she in hiding which was effectively the “justification” for the latest court absurdity in a seemingly endless flow. The story is Kafkaesque, the order for her arrest all too real. 
Europe expects a concrete strategy to redress the effects of selective justice and prevent it from happening again, second free and fair elections and third the resumption of delayed reforms already agreed in the joint EU-Ukraine “Association Agenda” 
The Prosecution claims the delay is to protect the former Prime Minister and opposition leader’s right to be at the trial. Ms Tymoshenko’s defence assert that the delay is to avoid a definite outcome before the PACE session on Ukraine in June 
Zahid Krasnov, the Dnipropetrovsk politician and businessman who is planning to stand for parliament this year had spent a week in detention. The criminal case terminated in 2009 has been opened at the instigation of the Prosecutor General’s Office 
Remarks by U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John F. Tefft at the Reform of the Prosecutor’s Office Roundtable Event 
Unfortunately nobody, least of all the former Interior Minister and opposition figure, expected a different outcome in this case which has been widely condemned as politically motivated and full of flagrant violations of the right to a fair trial 
The latest hearing in the trial of Yakiv Strogan was supposed to take place on Wednesday but was postponed for the second time because the new forensic medical report ordered 4 months ago is still not ready. 
Corrupt judges can rest easy, their income declarations will not be seen by anybody except the heads of the courts. 
Former Interior Minister and opposition figure Yury Lutsenko has accused the Prosecutor of pulling his sentence out of thin air. During the hearing on Tuesday he pointed out just some of the features making the charges against him and his "conviction" incomprehensible 
An interview with Kharkiv lawyer Serhiy Medvedev, whose name has often appeared here in connection with his defence of Yakiv Strogan in which Mr Medvedev talks about that case, the reasons why there are so few acquittals in Ukraine, and the rule of law he wants his grandchildren to know 
However, the bloc’s 27 foreign ministers meeting in Brussels agreed to put on ice talks over Ukraine’s deepening political association and economic integration with the EU. The EU has been critical of Ukraine over the alleged ill-treatment of jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko 
The U.S. Government continues to call for Mrs. Tymoshenko’s release, the release of other members of her former government and the restoration of their full civil and political rights. 
Ms Tymoshenko alleges that she was beaten when taken by force to a Kharkiv hospital. A forensic expert on Thursday confirmed that she has two bruises on her body, but was unable as yet to explain their origin. 
President Dalia Grybauskaite;s plans were announced on the same day that German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the the Bundestag that Ukraine was a dictatorship and likened it to its authoritarian neighbor, Belarus 
President Bronisław Komorowski appealed on Wednesday to all political forces in Ukraine for changes in the Ukrainian laws that would make sentencing for political activity on the basis of criminal law impossible 
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