The right to force instead of the rule of law

On the night of May 25, when the city was resting from the eventful Day of Kyiv, activist of Hostynny Dvir Yevhen Parfionov was cruelly beaten near the house of his parents. He was talking on the phone with his friend, when six young men in track suits (that is the typical “anti-fascist” appearance today) came up to him and asked: “So, you’re freaking cool nationalist or something?” Parfionov answered: “Yes” and received a blow on the head for that. After that, the young men beat him black and blue. As a result, Parfionov has two cranium fractures, brain concussion, broken jaw, and slashed arm. Also, he cannot see with his left eye.

It is remarkable that this is not the first case of this kind: since the beginning of May, a number or cruel attacks on civil activists (both party members and non-affiliated) were carried out. On May 4, Volodymyr Nazarenko, head of the youth Svoboda organization of Solomiansky district, was beaten near his house. On May 10 started the persecution of Andrii Medvedko, another Svoboda member. He is receiving threats. On May 13, public activist Yevhen Matsko was delivered to a hospital with cranium fractures. The attackers hit him with brass knuckles. On the same day, Volodymyr Karas, brother of Svoboda party member Yevhen Karas, was beaten up. Three “sportsmen” with brass knuckles beat him right near the door to his apartment and after they were done, they asked: “So, you’re happy now that you went to rallies?” The result is cranium fractures, a hole in the cranium, two broken jaws, a few bones dislocated, and a ruined face.

And finally, on May 25 an attack on Parfionov was committed, and some other activists were threatened again. “I was threatened many times. Just two days ago, I found a note on my door saying ‘you are going to finish badly.’ And before that, my mother received a call at three in the morning; someone said that I died in a car crash. And before that, the police came to my friend and interrogated her about who I am and what I do,” says Tamara SHEVCHUK, one of the activists protecting Hostynny Dvir (non-affiliated), Parfionov’s friend. “There is no point in going to the police, because this case will just hang there. If people are seriously beaten and the police do nothing, they will definitely do nothing in my case.” Our conversation with Shevchuk takes place right after the activist copied the video from Silpo supermarket security cameras, where Parfionov was beaten. “We are carrying out an investigation ourselves, because the police do nothing at all,” Shevchuk says.

“TWO WEEKS HAVE PASSED, THERE IS NO REACTION WHATSOEVER”

Last week, Svoboda MP Andrii Illienko (most of the assaulted people are Svoboda members) asked the minister of internal affairs Vitalii Zakharchenko a question at the Verkhovna Rada about the beatings of activists by unknown attackers. The minister’s answer was rather short, he said: “Investigation is being carried out,” and did not add any details.

“When an attack on activist Andrii Medvedyk was planned, we managed to ‘hunt the hunters,’ catch them by surprise and film them. After that, corresponding statements were submitted to the police. By the way, this video is on the Internet. I met with the Prosecutor General and the minister of internal affairs in person and directed my application to them. But almost two weeks passed, and there is no reaction whatsoever. Nobody is trying to look for the attackers; this makes me think that they are protected by the police,” says Svoboda party MP Andrii ILLIENKO.

He supports his theory about a possible link between attackers and law enforcement bodies with their good experience of attack organization. “People are tracked down, their phone conversations are tapped, their routes are monitored, and then they are attacked from behind in the hallways of their apartment buildings, hit with brass knuckles on the head and told: ‘You won’t go to rallies anymore.’ This aggressive campaign started in early May and a total of about 10 attacks have already taken place. Svoboda members and just public activists are attacked. Sometimes, they attack people who have not been engaged in public activity for years. We are convinced that in one way or another, this is connected to law enforcement agencies and their databases. This is just outrageous, they use brass knuckles, walkie-talkies, high-quality video registration systems, special equipment, which obviously requires professional coordination,” Illienko says.

In his turn, human rights advocate, head of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, co-head of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group Yevhen Zahkarov thinks that state bodies should react to this, otherwise the situation looks weird at the very least. “There should be a reaction from the state bodies, because it looks like they are in alliance with those ordering and organizing the beatings,” says Zakharov.

The human rights advocate is convinced that if the police and state bodies continue ignoring attacks on activists, it might lead to extremely negative consequences. “This [the attacks. – Ed.] can be classified as hate crime. It is a very serious crime and the police have to investigate it. And this is an absolutely not normal situation, when they do nothing. The recent experience shows that law enforcement agencies are not in a rush to do their job. And besides, the young man who beat the journalists is already released. The police are too lenient, and this is a bad thing. It will only lead to a situation in which people will see that the rule of law does not work, so they will rely upon the right to force.”

REPRESSIONS, REVENGE, OR AN ACCIDENT?

“It seems to me that this process was launched after the so-called ‘snowball’ incident. Obviously, it was decided to reprove all the ‘unruly’ ones. This is the first version that comes to mind. After a mass registration of all active citizens, the most radical activists are singled out and pressurized,” Ihor LUTSENKO, Hostynny Dvir protector, initiator of the public initiative “Preserve Old Kyiv” ponders over the possible reasons of the sudden and extremely aggressive campaign against the activists.

Instead, Zakharov thinks it is not appropriate to call these attacks repressions, at least for now, when there is no evidence yet. “When people talk about repressions, it is implied that they are initiated by the state. In order to be sure that they really come from the state, relevant evidence is required. For the time being, there is no such evidence in sight. And I think such statements are premature. This looks more like something we have at the Hostynny Dvir: there are two sides to the conflict, the developer and the protesters. It looks like the developer just hires young people to beat protesters and break down their resistance.”

But Shevchuk says that even those activists who have no relation to Hostynny Dvir were attacked. They did not obstruct the developer’s activities, they were just politically active people in Kyiv. The activist says that has no idea what the reasons for the attacks might be, however, in the beginning, she also thought about the “snowball incident” theory and revenge.

HORRIBLE THINGS THAT… DO NOT BOTHER THE SOCIETY?

Despite the outrageous attacks on public activists, cruel beatings, and threats, this was not covered by the media, and what is even more surprising, by social networks. And in its turn, it did not provoke a necessary public pressure on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Prosecutor’s Office. Of course, the events of 18 May played their role too, because they attracted the society’s attention, and the fact that beatings took place on weekends and holidays, when people watched and read news less. But besides that, these actions were well-organized. Lutsenko is convinced that “All the attacks were planned in a way to cause the least social stir. They were made to look like some other things, hooligan or collector attacks. Each time it was something different, so it did not look like a planned terror, even though that is exactly what it is. Secondly, such attention-drawing things like the May 18 events and attacks on journalists took place at the same time, and they moved attacks against rank-and-file activists out of the media limelight.” However, Shevchuk thinks the reason of such indifference lies in the social tiredness. “People are disappointed in everything to the extent that they do not care anymore. Everyone knows that such things happen in our country and don’t care anymore,” the activist says.

However, there is a question. Why were the political circles, especially the opposition, so sluggish in their reaction to the beating of civic activists? Except for Svoboda, not a single political force reacted to this. “Some of these activists are party members, and there was an application submitted for party activists. So, it turns out that non-affiliated activists are less important for the opposition? Besides, the opposition is not connected with the field activists in any way, so why would MPs file applications about people they do not know. This, I think, is the problem of the virtuality of our politics,” Lutsenko sums up.