Artur Kharitonov, Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine’s leader, informed about the Congress of European Liberal Youth resolution that harshly criticizes the political repressions against civil rights activists in Ukraine.
“After two months of hard work, hours of international advocacy efforts and talks, assessment of hundreds of the documents and statements on Ukrainian human rights’ violations, I am glad to announce that the community of European Liberals officially have recognized the fact of political repressions from ‘Servant of the People’ party, said Kharitonov.
The critical response was initially prompted by the plans of ruling ‘Servant of the People’ party to join ALDE. Ukrainian Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine affiliated with ALDE through European Liberal Youth organization, raised their concern over such a move in the light of recent politically motivated repressions in the country.
“We started to advocate our resolution fearing that European [Liberals] community may fail to grasp all the delicate undercurrents of Ukrainian reality. We, for the first time, exposed Sternenko case on international level and revealed the truth about ‘devil’ [Avakov], and ‘plague’ [Venediktova],”noted Kharitonov.
The resolution was upheld by 28 different political organizations of Liberals in Germany, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Lithuania, Romania, Catalonia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Czech republic, Hungary, Austria, and Luxembourg.
On April 24, the Congress of European Liberal Youth passed the resolution “Demand to Stop Political Repressions Against Young Civil Right Activists and to Restore the Rule of Law in Ukraine” that got support from all 170 Congress members.
The document, according to Kharitonov, addresses ‘politically motivated’ arrests and prosecution of Serhiy Sternenko, Andriy Antonenko, Yuliya Kuzmenko, Roman Ratushnyi, and Serhiy Fillimonov. It also criticizes the Verkhovna Rada recent response to the protests at the President’s office by calling it ‘pressure’ on the civil society that degrades democracy.
Its list of violations cites the state top officials Arsen Avakov, Iryna Venediktova, Anton Gerashchenko, Oleskiy Arestovych, and many of “Servant of the People” MPs among those who make such politically motivated prosecution of civil activists possible.
The Congress members also voiced their disapproval of “Servant of the People” polices of exercising pressure on courts in handling the activists’ cases given the party intent to join ALDE.
“LYMEC delegation is set to raise the resolution issues at the summer ALDE Congress where “Servant of the People” is set to apply for the organization membership. The information about political repressions of civil activists in Ukraine has been passed on to the main Liberal parties. As some of the delegates assumed, “Servant of the People” stands no chance of joining the European parties’ alliance,” added Kharitonov.
The Ukrainian politician is confident than now when European Liberals’ community is provided with the details on the recent repressive campaigns in Ukraine, the ALDE Congress next time will be most wary of ‘experts’ telling fabricated ‘stories’ about Ukrainian ‘Nazis” and “killers’.