A preliminary hearing in a case on an appeal lodged by citizen Volodymyr Volosiuk against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych will be held at the Pechersky district court in Kyiv on June 15, the press service of the People's Rukh (Movement) of Ukraine reported on Monday.
In his appeal, Volosiuk said that that the head of state, by stating in Strasbourg on April 27 that the Holodomor famine of 1932-1933 should not be recognized as genocide against the Ukrainian people, had humiliated the honor and dignity of the plaintiff and "committed an act of outrage upon the millions of people destroyed in such a criminal manner."
Volosiuk asked the court to issue a ruling obliging the president to publicly apologize to the plaintiff and the Ukrainian people.
As reported, Yanukovych said at a PACE session in Strasbourg on April 27, 2010 that in his opinion, it would be incorrect to recognize the famine of the 1930s as genocide against the Ukrainian people.
"The famine occurred in Ukraine, in Russia, in Belarus, Kazakhstan – it was a consequence of the Stalinist totalitarian regime. But to recognize the famine as a fact of genocide in relation to one or another nation – we consider that incorrect and unfair," he said.
On November 28, 2006, the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament, adopted a presidential law on the Holodomor with amendments proposed by former Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Moroz. The legislature recognized the famine of 1932-1933 as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.
