Some 100 well-known Ukrainian public figures have called on Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to pardon former Ukrainian Premier Yulia Tymoshenko.
"We are addressing you with a request to pardon Yulia Tymoshenko as soon as possible and completely release her from enduring an unfair punishment," reads a letter to the president.
The letter was published during a press conference on March 21 by writer Dmytro Pavlychko, head of the presidential commission for pardon issues (2005-2008) Levko Lukyanenko, and a judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the Hague Volodymyr Vasylenko.
"We think that a politically motivated and illegal seven-year sentence of former Ukrainian Premier and leader of the Batkivschyna Party Yulia Tymoshenko is a challenge to the whole of Ukrainian society, an outrage for democracy and human rights and freedom," reads the letter.
"The unlawful conviction of [Tymoshenko by] Pechersky Court discredits not only the Ukrainian state, but also you as the president of Ukraine, the guarantor of the Constitution of Ukraine, who must protect the rights of citizens," reads the document.
