The lack of interest in another bill,
fighting terrorism, is particularly baffling given its authorship. It is the
latest legislative offering from Vitaly Zhuravsky, whose attempt last year to
recriminalize libel led to a major journalist campaign within Ukraine and
expressions of concern from the international community.
Zhuravsky has now turned his attention to
the “fight against terrorism” with his bill № 2219а registered
at the same time as Oliynyk’s. It has passed almost unnoticed, as have a
number of earlier moves extending the powers of the authorities without any
clear understanding of who it is that they are fighting.
The terminology in the new bill is just as
woolly and vague as its predecessors, not to mention the classic of the genre –
Ukraine’s Public Morality Act. The assertions about a supposed threat are
openly manipulative and exaggerated. We are told in the explanatory note that “in recent years the propaganda of terrorist
acts has become widespread. New Breiviks appear virtually every week in
European countries.”
Zhuravsky seems to still be hell-bent on
imposing criminal liability, but this time “for the propaganda and
dissemination of the ideology of terrorism, as well as public incitement to
carry out activities defined as terrorist.” In the draft bill itself he
specifies that “the
propaganda of the ideology of terrorism is to be understood as activity which
involves the systematic dissemination and elaboration of views of a certain
community whose ideals are phenomena linked with the escalation of violence in
the form of terrorist acts.”
Looking at the components of this
definition shows the scope for application is alarmingly broad, and makes it clearer
why the authorities are so eager to “fight terrorism.” The lack of
attention is more puzzling.
Zhuravsky is also proposing to add a
paragraph to Article 258 of the Criminal Code (on terrorism). It offers total
freedom from prosecution to a person who, although involved in preparing a
terrorist act, voluntarily comes forward and informs the law enforcement bodies
about it. Even in countries with an independent judicial system and well-developed
mechanisms of public scrutiny over law enforcement bodies, trust is not
unlimited. A person’s voluntary rejection of a criminal plan is of course taken
into account. However the possible consequences of a total guarantee of
immunity from prosecution for reporting an alleged terrorist plan are
terrifying.
At the beginning of November 2011
President Yanukovych stated the opposition was “amassing weapons and planning
armed attacks on State authorities.” This shocking information, coming just
weeks after the regime’s main opponent had been sentenced to seven in prison, was
received by many with scepticism, and elicited challenges from the opposition
to provide evidence. The police clearly had difficulty with proof and the media
obligingly fell silent on the subject of “armed attacks.”
Not that those in power had any intention
of forgetting such “threats.” Just three weeks later the President submitted a
draft law on creating a new division within the state security services (SBU)
with new powers to defend the “legitimate interests of the State “in the
information security sphere.” There was relatively little interest despite the
obvious carte blanche for monitoring and blocking what somebody regarded as
“subversive” or “dangerous” information.
Six months later we learned of a supposed
“heightened terrorist threat” which the Security and Defence Council responded
to with a Decision on Anti-Terrorist Measures in Ukraine from 25 May 2012. The
Decision is disturbingly similar to analogous initiatives in the Russian
Federation and states the following:
“The main reasons for terrorism are radicalism; extremism;
politicization of issues concerning inter-ethnic, ethno-faith relations; the
spread of public intolerance and confrontation, particularly with respect to socio-political
relations … Radically disposed forces are attempting to use
difficulties linked with the accumulation of many unresolved social problems
for their narrow corporate aims.”
It would seem that the Ukrainian
authorities have the same attitude to “information security” and “terrorism” as
Humpty Dumpty to words. The woolly terms mean just what those in power need them
to mean – no more, no less. The fight against them is equally
specific.
On 12 September 2012 the Cabinet of
Ministers adopted Instruction No. 672-r “On information-explanatory measures in
the sphere of fighting terrorism.” This is aimed against “terrorist acts and
actions which threaten public order” and enlists a formidable number of
ministries and state departments, including the State TV and Radio Broadcasting
Committee in ensuring the right public attitude to terrorism and state measures
against it (English
translation here)
We can only guess how some departments are
implementing the instruction, but saw within a month how the state broadcaster UTV-1
responded. The film “Adov Ad” about the bomb blasts in Dnipropetrovsk in April
2012 was shown twice during prime time a week before the parliamentary
elections. The film’s clear message was that the authorities had caught the
right men, probably averted even greater terrorist actions, and with a
pronounced political flavour. The presenter openly claims that a major
terrorist plan involving two of the men on trial and an opposition lawmaker was
narrowly averted. Despite provable distortion and downright lies, the Kyiv
Court of Appeals in early June overturned a court ruling ordering the channel
to retract defamatory statements about one of the accused men, Dmytro Reva. The
Prosecutor is blocking criminal proceedings against the Security Service
officer who demonstrably falsified the evidence against Reva and used it as
grounds for remanding him in custody. The “anti-terrorist” role thus played by
state television is manifestly dangerous.
The media are regularly fed – and
unthinkingly regurgitate – stories about supposed terrorist threats averted,
arrests etc. In
the summer of 2012 a
large number of Ukrainian Muslims were taken in for questioning, and two men
were remanded in custody over highly nebulous charges of extremism.
In another case against three members of the extreme
right Patriot of Ukraine organization who have been held in custody since
August 2011, the young men appear to be accused of having planned to blow up a
monument to Lenin which has long been dismantled.
Nobody expects the fight against terrorism
to be open, however there must be some clarity as to who is viewed as
presenting a danger. If passed, Zhuravsky’s draft law would heighten a much
more immediate threat in Ukraine, that of anti-terrorist measures becoming part
of the arsenal of weapons used for propaganda purposes or against opponents of
the regime.
