Arrest of the Crimean activist of Euromaydan Oleksander Kostenko in Simferopol on February 8 is violation of the international law. The representative of Euromaydan SOS Oleksandra Matviychuk announced about that during the press-conference.
Kostenko is accused of beating a Berkut officer during events on the Grushevskogo Street in last January.
“He is accused of throwing a stone at a warrant office of the police of Ukraine. He threw it being bound up in “ideological hatred.” As a result, a hematoma appeared on the policeman’s hand,” announced the Euromaydan activist Stanislav Krasnov.
The director of the advocatory center of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group on human rights Boris Zakharov believes that this situation is a tendentious one for the peninsula and it directly violates the criminal law. “Nowadays a system of political hunt of the pro-Ukrainian and Crimean-Tatar activists has been established in Crimea. Right now a new wave of the hunt after activists of Euromaydan strictly because of the political motivation started. We can see violations of criminal law principles and the right for the fair trial.”
Oleksandra Matviychuk, the coordinator of Euromaydan SOS, added that such situation is a complete absurdity. “This situation is beyond the limits of legal framework and common sense. Actually, this absurdity and contrivedness of the accusation does not stop the occupational authorities. Russia prosecutes the citizen of Ukraine because of participation in a protest on the territory of Ukraine and for abusive practices allegedly committed against another citizen of Ukraine, thereto a representative of the law enforcement agency of our country. And all this takes place on the part of Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia”.
According to Matviychuk, there are no effective means of legal defense from such cases in Crimea. “We have to say that taking into account the absence of any hints on independence of jurisdiction in such cases we ask people, who live in Crimea, to properly assess risks and take care about their safety in case of need.”
