Vitaly Shabunin on Aug. 16 became the first major anti-corruption activist to face official charges under President Petro Poroshenko.
Shabunin could be jailed for three years on charges of assaulting journalist and activist Vsevolod Filimonenko. Although Shabunin’s punching Filimonenko for insulting a female colleague was wrong, his case is a classic example of selective justice and the use of law enforcement to crack down on the government’s critics.
The political character of the case is obvious, given that prosecutors on Aug. 1 closed a case against People’s Front party lawmaker Serhiy Pashynsky over him shooting at a drunk man in 2016. The Interior Ministry, which is investigating Shabunin, is also ignoring video footage in which the ministry’s state secretary, Oleksiy Takhtai, negotiates a corrupt deal to sell sand.
The charges also represent a red line that Ukrainian authorities have crossed on their way towards a more authoritarian and kleptocratic regime. The previous red line was on July 27, when Poroshenko stripped his major political opponent Mikheil Saakashvili of citizenship and made him stateless, resurrecting a Soviet practice explicitly banned by the Constitution.
Poroshenko and Interior Minister Arsen Avakov feel they are getting away with their disregard for the law and the Constitution, and the West has connived in their lawlessness by turning a blind eye to their obstruction of reform. Through their actions the Ukrainian authorities are further alienating the nation’s reformers and civil society, and could be pushing the nation towards another wave of protests. If more protests erupt, Poroshenko and his government only have themselves to blame.
After three years, they’ve failed to reform Ukraine and stamp out corruption. The persecution of Shabunin is just the latest evidence of this.
