About 500 protesters gathered on Feb. 18 near the Interior Ministry building in Kyiv for the “Bandera, get up!” rally calling for an end to police brutality.
The rally was held in response to a Feb. 9 clash between police and activists from the public movement that demands justice for the murder of Kherson activist Kateryna Gandziuk, who died in November from crippling burns when a man poured a liter of sulfuric acid on her. A video of a skirmish during a campaign rally of presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko in Kyiv showed that one police officer kicked a member of the C14 nationalist organization to the ground and shouted in Russian: “Bandera, lie down.”
The reference is to Stepan Bandera, the Ukrainian nationalist hero who lived from 1909 to 1959. Bandera is often used by Russian media as a pejorative slur for Ukrainian nationalists.
The police officer, Vasyl Melnikov, was later arrested for abuse of his position and released on bail of Hr 115,000 ($4,230). Interior Ministry spokesman Artem Shevchenko said the officer will be prosecuted. Head of the Kyiv National Police Andriy Kryshchenko apologized for his officer’s words.
At the Feb. 15 rally, members of major far-right organizations С14, Right Sector, Svoboda and others, called for an end to police brutality and voiced some other demands, including the obligatory wearing of special identification numbers on helmets, full re-certification of all special units, de-politicization of the police, and the resignation of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. Activists ignited flares and shouted “Impeach Avakov!”
The Interior Ministry, through spokesman Shevchenko, issued this statement: “The rally was peaceful without violations of public order. This was in contrast to the event that triggered this rally, when these individuals violated public order. If they hadn’t violated public order back then and hadn’t use hooliganism and attempted to penetrate into a government building — then there would be no reason to hold this rally. They deliberately went on to provoke the conflict at the Podilsky district department. All of their demands are already being implemented bythe police, including the Scandinavian model of work at public protests — for example, ‘policing by dialogue,’ which is used at each public rally in Kyiv. This is simply a political event aimed at popularizing these public youth organizations. Based on the incident at the Podilsky police department, one police officer is being prosecuted. Four people from their side are suspected.
The 200,000-member Interior Ministry is considered to be a largely unreformed law enforcement agency whose officers are frequently the targets of abuse complaints, as the ministry has a poor record in fighting high-level crime and corruption.
The article was published as a part of the Journalist Exchange Program by Media Development Foundation with the support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Content is independent of the donor.
