They call themselves Fashion Verdict - a group that tries to sweep promiscuity, gambling, sexual offenders and homosexuality from the streets of Ukraine’s cities, without the help of what they say is a corrupt law enforcement system.
Mykola Dulskiy,
a 26-year-old self-proclaimed promoter of “traditional family values,” last
year founded the group in Kyiv, which claims more than 20,000 members in
Russia, Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.
Usually,
the group attacks a person when it receives three pictures, and other forms of
so-called evidence, of someone leading an “improper lifestyle” –along with
their contact information on social media. The self-styled activists then find
the victim and then beat them or spray gas in their eyes.The incident is recorded
on video.Beatings are dealt out, according recordings the group has posted on
social media, for things as trivial as an unusual haircut, to wearing earrings,
or posting nude pictures online.
“Everyone
knows who deserves punishment. But people are too cowardly to meet out justice.
Well, we’re not,” Dulskiy told the Kyiv Post.
One of the Fashion Verdict emblems showing one man attack another man with the motto “Fight until the end”.
Detractors
of the organization say it is nothing more than a homophobic group of gangs
that violently impose their own standards of morality. And their enforcement
methods are cruel, involving the use of baseball bats, bare fists and public
humiliation. Their alleged victims could be promiscuous girls aged under 16,
and gay people. Although the self-styled vigilantes say they never rob their
victims, they film their actions and post the videos on social media
likeVkontakte, a Russian online social network that has a huge following in
Ukraine.
The exact
number of their alleged victims is unknown. TochkaOpory, a group that protects
the rights of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people, published a
report in March according to which 112 acts of violence by Fashion Verdict
against gay people were filmed and published online in 2014-2015.
Tochka Opory
activists have filed police reports with the Interior Ministry in Kyiv three
times asking for them to investigate the alleged Fashion Verdict crimes. “Butthe
police closed the cases because of the impossibility of identifying the
victims,” reads the report.
“Most of
their (Fashion Verdict’s alleged) victims do not call the police, or withdraw
their testimonysoon after recovering from the incident,” said Bogdan Globa,
Tochka Opory’s managing director.
Dulskiy,
who unsuccessfully ran for mayor of Kyiv last month, said Ukrainian society
should be thankful for the group’s deeds.
“I created
Fashion Verdict as a movement for young men who stand for morality and want to
fight for a better life. We have already a huge network of communities all over
Ukraine. About 300 people in every
neighborhood of Kyiv and a community in Kharkiv, Odesa and Donetsk,”
Dulskiy told the Kyiv Post.
Mykola Dulskiy, the creator of Fashion Verdict in Ukraine, explains his own view on life in Ukraine on Oct. 27 in Kyiv.
Dulskiy
said that he created the group to keep youngsters away from drugs.“After the
EuroMaidan, many activists didn’t know what to do with themselves and started to
degenerate and take drugs. So I decided to create a new fashion for sobriety
and morality among the youth,” he said.
Before
giving up control over the group to found Nazhdak (emery) late in 2014 for
older men wishing to crack down on vices, Dulskiy said he “fought against
pedophiles, drug dealers, and conducted different campaigns.”
However,
soon it became very hard to control so many people, and Dulskiy decided to form
another group to continue fighting against “illegal gambling, prostitution and
LGBT.”
“We’re not
against homosexuals. And we’re not devils, we just don’t want families with
‘parent number one’ and ‘parent number two’ in Ukraine!” said Dulskiy.
The
so-called activist wants to embark on a political career. He left the Unity
Party of former Mayor Oleksandr Omelchenko to run as an independent.
“Ukraine
needs real men in parliament! Not those oligarchs, who are not even of the same
blood or faith as us! When Nazhdak becomes a political party, it will become a
force that is good for the West and East,” Dulskiy said.
Dulskiy
says he plans bring back Fashion Verdict to his fold when he finds investors who
will help him turn it into a youth development organization.
In fact,
Fashion Verdict came to Ukraine from Russia, Globa said. Russian activists gave
lessons on how to “punish wrong people,” he said, adding that the workshops
ended with dozens of people becoming victims of hate crimes.
Prosecuting
members of the group for their violent attacks is no easy matter, however.
One gay
rights activist, who was allegedly beaten by Fashion Verdict members in Kyiv’s
Holosiyivsky Park, according to Globa, withdrew his police testimony because he
didn’t want to face his attackers and was afraid his parents would find out that
he is gay.
Other
Fashion Verdict group members declined to respond to the Kyiv Post’s requests
for comment.
“Many
people criticize our methods. But we do not want to live in the world of young
sluts, homos and other crap anymore,” says an official statement by Fashion
Verdict posted on social media.
Kyiv Post staff
writer Veronika Melkozerova can be reached at [email protected]
