While probably unconnected, news of the first incident came after a day of media reports about two journalists being interrogated or summoned for questioning by the Security Service over a criminal investigation dating back to 2008. One had, on Dec. 10, been kept at the Security Service for around 10 hours.

The behavior of the Berkut officers raises serious questions. In an interview with Telekritika, co-chair of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group, Yevhen Zakharov, called the actions unlawful and not within the scope of Berkut duties.

The official statement issued by the Interior Ministry is that Berkut officers received information about a robbery committed by a man and woman, and that they therefore noticed and used their torches to examine the car occupied by Tetyana Danylenko and Nayem. The account differs radically from that of the two journalists, regarding when and why they got out of the car, whether identification was shown and what happened to the mobile phone. It does not, however, explain why the officers only asked for Mustafa Nayem’s identification given that they were looking for a man and woman suspected of committing a robbery.

Nayem described the events of Monday evening at length in an article for Ukrainska Pravda “Xenophobia must not become the face of Ukrainian nationalism” and in various interviews.

He and a female colleague were sitting in her car in the TV Channel 5 parking area at around 9.30 p.m. on Monday, waiting for the engine to warm up. The Berkut patrol car drove up and two officers got out. One began shining a torch into the car and then first at his colleague, then at Mustafa.

He asked only the latter to get out of the car and show his documents, which Mustafa did after first asking to see the man’s identification. His colleague, Tetyana Danylenko, also got out of the car and demanded an explanation. The man answered: “We are not touching you, but have the right to check his documents." Tetyana Danylenko was incensed by the response and the conversation continued in heated tones.

Nayem is an experienced journalist and accustomed to showing his ID with the word press in a highly visible place. He is convinced that the officer saw the ID very clearly, yet the officer demanded that he show it again. During the discussion, since Mustafa with justification pointed out that he had already shown it, another officer (the head of the group, it transpired later) appeared and asked what was happening. He was told: “I’ve got a person of Caucasus nationality here [i.e. who is or looks like a person from the Caucasuses, but this is the offensive phrase typically used.] He doesn’t want to show his documents.”

Nayem, who up until that point had cooperated fully, was understandably outraged and calmly stated: “After what you said, I refuse to show you my documents."

When the officer asked why not, Tetyana Danylenko said: “Because his appearance does not give you the right to demand his documents."

“We will work out ourselves what your rights are,” they were told and Mustafa was taken to the police station. They took his mobile phone away from him until after he entered the police station. After arriving there, the officer who’d detained him wrote a report there and then in the car.

Within some 15 minutes a member of Parliament, Oles Doniy, appeared, and he was obviously not the only person informed of what was happening. The head of the Podil Police Station, the driver and head of the Berkut unit apologized. Mustafa notes that by then there had clearly been a call from headquarters and he cannot say whether the apologies were sincere, however they were made. The Head of the Kyiv Interior Ministry phoned and promised that there would be an official inquiry into the incident.

In his account of the incident, Nayem stresses that he has never had any conflict with the police and has, after more than 14 years of work as a journalist, become accustomed to providing ID without any problem.