- Global Voices - https://globalvoices.org -

Human Rights Violations During Ukraine's #Euromaidan Protests

Categories: Ukraine, Citizen Media, Digital Activism, Freedom of Speech, Human Rights, Protest

One of many newly set up blogs following Euromaidan protests in Ukraine, which have entered their second month, has collected several graphic images [1] of injured, bleeding protesters from the past several weeks of protests and speaks of the disturbing violations of basic human rights, such as beatings of citizens and journalists in Ukraine during the peaceful rallies. This blog post in particular calls attention to statements from several human rights watchdogs and the fact that, other than several violent police crackdowns on protesters, some participants of the protests are still being held in custody by police:

In December alone, according to Kharkiv Human Rights Group director Yevhen Zakharov, more than 50 journalists were assaulted – mainly by police – including 40 on Dec. 1 alone, when a large rally erupted in central Kyiv in response to a violent police crackdown on Independence Square the day before. […]

Despite an amnesty law in force concerning EuroMaidan protesters, four activists remain in custody for taking part in rallies, according to Kharkiv Human Rights group member Halya Coynash. She identifed the four as Yaroslav Prytulenko, Andriy Dzyndzya, Viktor Smaliy and Volodymyr Kadura.