You're reading: Political rivals tussle over human rights at Kyiv forum

Presidential aide Hanna Herman, Ex-Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria spar over rights abuses at Freedom House event.

To counter charges that political opponents are being persecuted with criminal investigations under her boss’ rule, presidential aide Hanna Herman sat front and center at a June 14 event in Kyiv held by Freedom House, a U.S.-based human rights organization.

When the time came for comments from the crowd, Herman was the first to shoot up from her seat.

She told everyone gathered at the International Renaissance Foundation’s Kyiv office that President Viktor Yanukovych’s administration, including the powerful general prosecutor, is politically color blind in its pursuit of justice.

As proof, Herman claimed that 478 government officials have had criminal investigations opened against them on suspicion of corruption.

These are “high-ranking government officials, from ministers, deputy ministers, heads of tax administration, held criminally liable for corruption,” Herman said. “I do not remember so many current officials held accountable by the past government.”

(On the photo: Ex-Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria)

But is it true?

As it happens, former Deputy Prime Minister Hryhoriy Nemyria – a confidante of Yanukovych’s top rival, ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko – was sitting at Herman’s right side. He stood up and pressed her to back up her claims.

She handed a five-page paper to Freedom House executive director David J. Kramer, then promptly walked out of the room and left the gathering.

As it turns out, the list she turned over to Kramer doesn’t contain 478 names of government officials, high-ranking or otherwise, under investigation. It appears to be a Security Services of Ukraine document written to rebut charges of politically motivated prosecutions.

The report cites several investigations of public officials, with Bohdan Presner being the highest ranking among them.

Amid corruption charges, he was removed from his duties in 2010 as deputy ecology minister in Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s government.

Left unchecked, Ukraine is head toward a path of autocracy and kleptocracy.

Damon Wilson, executive vice president of the Atlantic Council

But this little-known official also served in a lesser position in 2009-2010 under the Tymoshenko government.

The others cited by Herman were primarily lower-level or local officials. In any event, the cases cited didn’t come anywhere close to 478 people.

So is she telling the truth or not? If so, where’s the list of names which journalists have for months asked to see and why can’t anyone – not the administration or the general prosecutor – provide such a list?

Nemyria said simply that Herman’s claims are not true and amount to pure political propaganda. “There is no list,” Nemyria said.

Yuriy Boychenko, a spokesperson for General Prosecutor Viktor Pshonka, told the Kyiv Post that 18 criminal cases were launched against high-ranking officials in the previous government and seven against officials in the current government.

He confirmed Herman’s claim that many officials, from both current and former governments, have been charged with corruption.

A spokesperson for the Security Service of Ukraine, known by its SBU acronym, said that from January through April, the agency has launched 462 criminal cases against current and former government officials.

But he could not breakdown what share of these individuals served under which governments.

Both the general prosecutor and SBU refused to give out the full list of these people, arguing that they cannot publish people’s names before the court ruling, a practice routinely flouted.

The debate over “the list” came against the backdrop of harsh criticism by Freedom House in its report, “Sounding the Alarm: Protecting Democracy in Ukraine,” released months earlier.

It is necessary to take into account fair criticism, and we will. I can be blamed for the fact that we sometimes take tough decisions. But it is such time now that we have to put our own country in order as soon as possible.

– Viktor Yanukovych

In it, Kramer – a former U.S. assistant secretary of state – told assembled journalists, human rights officials and political rivals Herman and Nemyria that concerns are high about Ukraine’s retreat from democracy under Yanukovych.

Most troubling, he said, are the monopolization of political power, the status of free and fair elections, the lack of independence of the judiciary, restrictions on independent media and politically motivated criminal prosecutions.

“It is necessary to take into account fair criticism, and we will,” Yanukovych said in response on June 15. “I can be blamed for the fact that we sometimes take tough decisions. But it is such time now that we have to put our own country in order as soon as possible.”

Damon Wilson, executive vice president of the Atlantic Council, called on Yanukovych to take the following steps: respect media and civil society groups; restrain the SBU and other law enforcement groups; end politically motivated prosecutions and pursue a credible anti-corruption campaign, among other steps.

“Left unchecked, Ukraine is head toward a path of autocracy and kleptocracy,” Wilson said.

Kyiv Post senior editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected] and staff writer Yuriy Onyshkiv can be reached at [email protected].