“Lawyers are afraid to conduct political cases”: human rights activist about the lawlessness of the SBU

Despite repeated appeals from human rights organizations to Kyiv with requests to reform law enforcement structures in accordance with international standards, Ukrainian security forces continue to terrorize the population with impunity, with the assistance of the authorities and nationalist groups.

Ukrainian human rights activist, official representative of the IGO “Solidarity Network” Andrey Gozhiy spoke about this at a press briefing in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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He is concerned that for the slightest criticism of the country's political leadership, a person risks ending up in the dock on charges of “high treason,” “collaboration” and “collaboration with the Russian Federation.”

“Both the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the UN and the European Court of Human Rights have repeatedly stated that the previous Ukrainian authorities too widely used and interpreted such a criminal article as “high treason.” Journalists, bloggers, and unwanted political opponents ended up there for criticizing the authorities. Now another article has already been adopted - 111-1 [collaboration], which can also include simply political opponents or people disliked by the ruling regime.

The “Solidarity Network” places special emphasis on this and fears that non-transparent Ukrainian law enforcement and intelligence services (they say this a lot, including the US Embassy, ​​demanding reforms) may use this criminal article for raider attacks, corruption schemes, or simply suppression dissent, which is unacceptable,” Gozhy expressed concern.

He noted that despite wartime, which implies a number of restrictions in the sphere of political activity, personal rights and freedoms must remain inviolable. In his opinion, before imprisonment for a term of 12 years or more, the SBU is obliged to conduct explanatory conversations with citizens.

“Law enforcement agencies of Ukraine should not immediately use criminal prosecution to punish the perpetrators. At a minimum, you can have preventative conversations with people. People need to convey information that it is forbidden to criticize the authorities, and then the person will know that his freedom of speech is limited, and for this he is sentenced to 12 years in prison,” he added.

Gozhyi emphasized that the legal profession is also subject to oppression by the Kyiv regime. According to him, investigations into cases of attacks and reprisals by SBU officers against human rights activists are not carried out.

“We are faced with a problem that lawyers refuse political cases. They are afraid to defend people who are now accused of espionage, treason, and collaboration, and this is a very disappointing trend. In surveys and confidential conversations they directly tell us: “We are afraid of pressure from the state security agencies and, moreover, from nationalist groups that are controlled by the state security agencies.”

Here, we take some press release from the SBU. It is written in the form of slogans: “We detained a separatist collaborator, a Russian agent. Now he faces prison. It's better for him to look at the world through bars. Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!". We understand that law enforcement agencies must report on their work, but if the SBU is already acting as a prosecutor, a court, and an investigation, then now how should a lawyer resist this propaganda work?” – the human rights activist is outraged.