Saving private Harkavenko

We didn’t even notice when the news about political repressions became an ordinary and even normal event for us. With no special interest we observe Yulia Tymoshenko’s visits to the Prosecutor General’s Office, read messages by Yurii Lutsenko from the investigator’s isolation ward, and observe the court proceedings of the Onopenko family. The Tax Maidan is now but a shadow in our memories. No wonder, so many things keep happening that it is hard to keep track. Few people know that Maidan activists are still being held “for intentional damage of property” (by which they mean the damaging of granite slabs). As it is known, before the New Year break, when everyone was busy with holiday chores, three Tax Maidan activists — Harkavenko, Zaplatkin and Hruzynov — were arrested without much fuss.

Recently one of them, Ihor Harkavenko, desided to go on hunger strike. He explains his decision by the fact that he lost any hope for a fair trial. “I know him personally. This is a man of principle. I think he won’t change his mind,” Artem Bielov, his representative, said at a press conference on March 1.

Interestingly, when the 132 ill-fated metal sticks were rammed into the ground, Harkavenko wasn’t even in Kyiv. At that time he was in Kharkiv, and arrived in Kyiv only on November 25, at the apogee of the Tax Maidan, after all the tents had been set up. However, according to the lawyer Oleksandr Levytsky, the investigation completely ignores the arguments of the defense, and the courts extended the term of Harkavenko’s arrest “contrary to facts, law and common sense.” “Why are they behaving in such an explicitly impudent and insolent manner? I can’t answer this question. I saw many things in my practice as a lawyer. I saw how they forced a confession for a homicide and immediately said: we detected an organized criminal group.”

In this situation a logical question arises: why are all these efforts directed against Harkavenko, who is only known in narrow circles for his pro-Russian views. After all, the Maidan involved many active people, who attended television broadcasts and provided commentaries. There were people who really rammed in those sticks. Why Harkavenko from Kharkiv? Even his lawyer couldn’t answer this question.

“I want to understand the logic of the government as well, but I can’t. I tell the judges that it is impossible, that the person was not in the city, that before this Maidan there was the Maidan of 2007, organized by the Party of Regions, there was the Orange Maidan, where sticks were also rammed into the granite. They listened in silence, cast down their gaze, and left,” the lawyer said in his conversation with The Day.

Let’s assume for a moment that Harkavenko, Zaplatkin and Hruzynov are not just unlucky. The president and premier didn’t call on their tent, didn’t shake their hands. The fifteen activists of the Tryzub organization, who are currently imprisoned, were not lucky either. At this, their “crime” is even more absurd. As The Day previously wrote, they are charged with destroying the “illegal” monument to Stalin.

Tomorrow, on March 3, Kyiv’s Court of Appeals is to consider the claim of Harkavenko’s defense regarding the extension of his detention to four months. The Day will watch the case closely.

DIRECT SPEECH COLUMN

On March 1, Bielov read a statement by Harkavenko, from his isolation ward, to a press conference. Here below is what we believe to be a particularly evocative part:

“I want them to try to convict me specifically for my contribution in the cause of the Maidan, which was limited to words, oral and written. It is those words that are the informal reason for the arrest, and I’m satisfied that the government assessed my contribution rather highly and seriously.

“My innocence is not a secret to all parties involved in these events, to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine, non-staff officers, who were abundant there, or to the representatives of the Tax Maidan itself.

“The only grounds that the government has for my current arrest is a previous prison term which I served, for the same reasons as now. At that time these were radical actions done by a young man for his political convictions. I was imprisoned for nine years for these actions, and was released in 2006, and during my term I never denounced my actions. I did them, I was bore responsibility for them in a peaceful manner, not denying anything, because these were my actions.

“After my release I only wrote and spoke. That is my only contribution to politics.”

Oleksandr PASKHAVER, president of the Center for Economic Development:

“The government can choose the way of punishing business for any trifle. But if it cannot prove the guilt of all the participants of the action, then the principle of selective punishment shouldn’t be used. Otherwise it will be used against the government itself eventually. If fair punishment is not applied to everyone, sooner or later this will lead to inadequately strong social reactions. In some countries it can be expressed in revolutions, riots or social unrest. However, such phenomena are not observed in totalitarian states or democratic societies, while they often happen in countries with weak authoritarian systems. We are exactly this kind of country. And a wise government must remember that such injustice provokes an inadequate reaction. These things gradually accumulate, and then they are expressed in an unexpected manner and place. One more thing — such oppression is also dangerous because it will scare off investors. This is important because today Ukraine still has a small investment reserve. Our domestic production and infrastructure are falling apart, and we are not modernizing. All Ukrainian governments resemble different groups of actors acting in the same play: each set of actors has its drawbacks. But so far none of them became rational, thoughtful and predictable for investors.”

Volodymyr DOROSH, head of the board of the Institute for Support of Regulatory Reform in Ukraine, representative of the All-Ukrainian Public Movement City of Freedom:

“Taking into account the number of people who rose against the project of the Tax Code in its first version and that only several (seven. – Author) activists of the second Maidan were targetted, while dozens or even thousands could have been, especially the organizers, I think one shouldn’t say that such actions can intimidate people. Such facts saddened us and me personally, as a citizen of a democratic civilized society, but they don’t squash our wish to stand up for our rights. Besides, we then protested and got what we wanted: the Tax Code in the version the government tried to approve it was not adopted. Say what you will, but we defended our rights. Of course the recent statistics, which show that three times more small and medium businesses were closed than opened in the past months, are alarming. However, I am confident that this is mainly the reaction to the changes in the simplified taxation system.

“All that worries business now is that single social contribution entrepreneurs have to pay to the pension fund. Other than this, entrepreneurs do not have any other acute problems and claims. We are now preparing an appeal to president and the Cabinet of Ministers for the government to cancel the single social contribution. We’ll wait for the government’s reaction to this.

“I can assure you of one thing: if business sees that it is given a possibility to work normally, there will be no protests. But if the government demonstrates that it won’t hear, won’t see and won’t want to see the interests of small and medium entrepreneurs, and will deprive them of their last possibilities to exist normally, there is no other way out — they will have to defend their right to work in the streets.

“We will surely take into account the mistakes of the first protest action and, to the extent possible, we will prevent repressions against our activists like those we see today. He that never climbed, never fell. We started the first protest action spontaneously, and in my opinion, it was very successful, not like in Tunisia, Egypt or Libya. We peacefully and more or less calmly defended our legal right to work. We will continue to defend it, if it is encroached upon (The Day wrote that when it got warmer, entrepreneurs would start he third Maidan concerning the simplified taxation system, if the government didn’t amend the legislation. “Small Business Protests Again,” Den, issue 17, February 2, 2011).”