A couple of snowballs thrown at a female Party of Regions lawmaker on April 2 turned into an avalanche of national debates on violence against women, the nation's tolerance for aggression and the selective work of law enforcement officials.
All these issues are extremely relevant in
Ukraine’s never-ending saga of political sandals, selective persecution, corruption,
crime and the generally deteriorating social climate.
It all started with a snowball thrown at Iryna
Horina, a frail and petite Party of Regions lawmaker, during a rally of several
thousand people on April 2. While some dispute the snowball’s existence, Horina
claims she was seriously injured and filed a complaint to Kyiv police, which
opened criminal proceedings to investigate the incident.
The next day, jailed ex-Prime Minister Yulia
Tymoshenko came out with a statement condemning the attack by masked men in the
crowd.
“I, as a politician of the opposition camp, on behalf of
everybody who is in the opposition, want to apologize to Iryna Horina, Yulia
Liovochkina, and Maryna Stavniychuk, who during the civil protest were injured
by snowballs thrown by unknown people,” the statement said. Apart from Tymoshenko, several
opposition party members have expressed regret about the event via social
media.
According to Horina, her colleagues from the opposition
Vitali Klitschko’s Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms (UDAR) party were
also verbally abused on that day near the parliament building. Radical party
leader Oleh Liashko also claimed on his Facebook page he was hit by snowballs.
Horina, who remains hospitalized in Kyiv, said
the attacker wore symbols of Svoboda, the ultra-right party known for its
aggressive rhetoric (and, as all parties in Ukraine, has also been involed in
physical fights).
Horina says she received a head injury and a
concussion. “When they hit us, they were rejoicing and laughing,” she recalls.
Svoboda members, however, deny the allegations.
Ukraine is no stranger to human rights
violations and physical intimidation of political opponents, with many
incidents reported during last year’s October parliamentary elections. Two major
opposition figures, ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko and former Prime
Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, remain in jail.
While civil protests invariable draw a large
police presence, the nation’s most serious crimes remain unsolved for years.
Last August famous environmental activist Volodymyr Honcharenko from
Dnipropetrovsk died after being brutally beaten on the way to his dacha. A couple days before the assault,
Honcharenko spoke out about
radioactive scrap metal being dumped in Kryviy Rig. The
press-conference was considered the main reason for the attack. The investigation has yet to produce a single
suspect.
“Our law enforcers are often involved actively
in (cracking down on) protests, especially opposition or civil ones, while they
turn out to be helpless when it comes to real crime investigation,” says
Oleksiy Haran, director of the school for political analysis at the Kyiv
Mohyla Academy.
While, it’s still unclear who is responsible
for the recent “snowballgate,” Haran claims these events reveal the nation’s
dissatisfaction with the authorities and result in big protests. “The
non-acceptance of the authorities is growing among society and I’m afraid it
could get out of their control at some point,” he says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be
reached at [email protected]
