The freak show that is Ukrainian politics shows no sign of ending. Wherever the truth lies, the scandals are damaging the nation’s hopes for international respect.Editor's Note:To read ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko’s full April 24 statement and see the video purportedly of her with lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko, please go to the Kyiv Post online at:www.kyivpost.com/news/politics/detail/126540
The prisoner was wrapped in a sheet, punched in the stomach, and dragged out of her cell to the hospital.
This scene, as described by the inmate herself, may not come as a surprise in Ukraine’s violent, disease-ridden prisons.
But the fact that the prisoner in question is former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko threatens to destroy the remaining shreds of credibility that Ukrainian authorities have in the West.
The allegations, swiftly denied by prison officials, were delivered in a handwritten letter written by Tymoshenko on April 24.
She claims she was dragged off to a hospital against her will on April 20, where she refused treatment. She then declared a hunger strike after she was returned to her prison cell in Kharkiv.
Yulia Tymoshenko shows bruises on her body to a representative of Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman. She says that a prison guard inflicted the injuries to her on April 20 while forcibly removing her from a state prison in Kharkiv to a state hospital in the same city. (Yulia Tymoshenko Facebook account)
Yulia Tymoshenko shows bruises on her elbow. (Yulia Tymoshenko Facebook account)
Tymoshenko, 51, has a spinal hernia and, according to doctors who examined her in February, needs medical treatment, perhaps even surgery. Prison authorities say she is exaggerating her condition and gets adequate treatment.
Ukraine’s relations with the West are already in deep freeze over her seven-year prison sentence on abuse-of-office charges last fall. Western officials in Kyiv said that Ukrainian authorities were further harming their tattered reputation.
“Tymoshenko and others are not treated in line with principles and values which underpin the European Union-Ukraine partnership: it’s a visible and painful stain on Ukraine,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele wrote April 25 on Twitter.
The scandal took a farcical turn on the same day Tymoshenko’s allegations were made public when a video clip surfaced appearing to show her walking around her cell, then in Kyiv, on Dec. 15 before capturing her in a romantic clinch with her legal representative, Serhiy Vlasenko.
Tymoshenko and others are not treated in line with principles and values which underpin the European Union-Ukraine partnership: it’s a visible and painful stain on Ukraine.
– Stefan Fuele, EU Enlargement Commissioner
Prison officials said the video was real, but Tymoshenko’s party said it was a fake.
After the allegations of a beating surfaced, prosecutors admitted she had been moved from Kharkiv’s Kachanivska penal colony to a state hospital against her will. But prison officials and doctors denied she had been beaten and that they had found no sign of bruises on her body.
Ukraine’s outgoing human rights representative, Nina Karpachova, said on April 25 that a representative of her office went to see Tymoshenko in prison the previous day and saw a bruise on her forearm as well as a bruise on her stomach.
She demanded that prosecutors open a criminal case. Karpachova, however, has been replaced with a candidate selected by the pro-presidential majority in parliament. That person has yet to take office.
Interfax-Ukraine reported on April 25 that Andriy Kozhemiakin, the leader of the Bloc of Yulia Tymoshenko in parliament, said she had been beaten by Andriy Kovalenko, the prison’s first deputy head. Prison officials have said, however, that no one assaulted the ex-prime minister.
Tymoshenko’s daughter, Yevheniya, visited her mother in prison and said she is in dire physical condition. “She is lying in bed after what happened to her,” the daughter said, according to Interfax-Ukraine.
President Viktor Yanukovych, who has denied Tymoshenko’s accusations that he wants her killed, ordered Prosecutor General Viktor Pshonka to investigate what happened. Reaction from the West and even Russia was sharp. The European Commission demanded immediate explanations while U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Tefft said America also takes “this very seriously.”
Amid the growing concern, German President Joachim Gauckhas this week rejected an invitation to the Black Sea resort of Yalta in mid-May. Gauckhas had been invited to attend a gathering of central European heads of state.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt on April 26 tweeted: “Difficult to avoid conclusion that things in Ukraine are going from bad to worse. They risk cutting ties to Europe.”
Shortly after Tymoshenko’s statement was published, a video appeared on YouTube, allegedly showing Tymoshenko’s prison cell in a Kyiv detention center in mid-December. She claimed at the time that she could barely walk, but the video shows a woman easily moving about the room.
Serhiy Sydorenko, deputy head of Ukraine’s Penitentiary Service, said the video was real. He could not explain how it appeared in the Internet. It first appeared on the Ukrainian National News website, owned by a former assistant to Hanna Herman, a top adviser of President Viktor Yanukovych. The website is reportedly pro-administration in its news coverage.
Difficult to avoid conclusion that things in Ukraine are going from bad to worse. They risk cutting ties to Europe.
– Carl Bildt, Swedish Foreign Minister
Parts of the video were shown during a news program on pro-presidential channel Inter that evening, with no questioning of its authenticity. Analysts said it looked like a smear campaign against Tymoshenko.
“This [coverage on Inter TV] had no balance of opinions, ignoring the other side of the story and objectivity,” said Viktoria Siumar, head of the Mass Information Institute, a media watchdog. “This information campaign has a particular aim – to discredit the leader of the opposition.”
Siumar also called any videotaping of Tymoshenko a basic violation of her right to privacy.
The press service of Inter – owned by First Deputy Prime Minister Valeriy Khoroshkovsky – did not answer emailed questions before Kyiv Post went to print.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected].
