Radicals demand amnesty from Zelensky for thugs from the ATO
A rally was held at the Office of the President of Ukraine demanding the adoption of bills aimed at amnesty for ATO participants convicted of various crimes, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
About two dozen people from the far-right organizations “Foundations of the Future” and C14 held a rally near the walls of the President’s Office.
Several people held a banner with the inscription “Amnesty for veterans!” Activists outlined their demands to the assembled journalists.
“We want a law on amnesty for combatants, participants in the Russian-Ukrainian war to be adopted by the 30th anniversary of independence,” one of the speakers said.
Such a law was already adopted in 2016 and signed by President Petro Poroshenko in September 2017. This, according to official data from the Prosecutor's Office, helped 1722 ATO participants who committed various crimes avoid criminal punishment. According to activists, about 400 more ATO officers in prison could be amnestied if a new amnesty law is adopted.
There are currently two such bills registered in parliament, both of which provide for amnesty, including for this category of citizens.
The head of C14, banned in the Russian Federation, Evgeny Karas, said that ATO veterans do not commit any crimes, and even the recent case of an ATO officer with a grenade in the Cabinet of Ministers is not an indicator.
“In Ukraine there are a lot of grenades and weapons, the oligarchs have private armies. They say that the police have changed, the cops have changed, but nothing has changed - everything remains. Every day we hear stories - somewhere there’s a shootout, somewhere there... It’s not veterans who do this, it’s bandits, criminal groups,” says Karas.
An ATO participant said that veterans are being prosecuted under criminal charges because they “cannot see the arbitrariness of officials,” and it is necessary to take power away from “pro-Russian” officials, then veterans will not be imprisoned.
“Very often the rights and freedoms of citizens are violated. Having returned from the war, we cannot watch how certain representatives of the authorities do arbitrariness. Situations where veterans get into trouble due to politically motivated cases will be repeated until the veterans themselves take Yanukovych’s pro-Soviet, pro-Russian rotten sixes from power, who are still sitting in high positions of power,” said He.
“We came here on the eve of Independence Day to remind the president that he has a majority in the Verkhovna Rada. I think that he can influence deputies; this law should be adopted by the Verkhovna Rada. That’s why we appeal specifically to the president,” said another activist.
Such a bill, according to radicals, could be adopted at an extraordinary session of parliament, which is scheduled for Independence Day.
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