The Independent Media Trade Union of Ukraine has demanded that the Prosecutor General's Office institute criminal proceedings against Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, claiming the police have turned into an armed criminal group, the union's press service reported on Tuesday.
The union demanded that Ukraine’s prosecutor general launch criminal proceedings against Zakharchenko and senior officials of the Interior Ministry under Part 2, Article 367 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (official negligence resulting in serious consequences).
The union noted that “under the management Ukrainian Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, as a result of the improper fulfillment by him and senior officers of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry of their duties, the police have turned from an armed body of the executive authorities that should protect the lives, health, rights and freedoms of citizens and the interests of society against illegal infringement (Article 1 of the law on the police), into an armed criminal group. [This] grouping poses a real danger to journalists and to society in general.”
The statement to Pshonka notes that the police “have recently systematically violated the rights of journalists and committed criminal offences against them, using physical force against journalists.”
The trade union of journalists also demanded that the prosecutor general open criminal proceedings against the heads of Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv and Kherson regional police departments for official negligence, abuse of power and office and gross violation of the rights of journalists.
