Vinnytsya Oblast police arrested Alisa Vinogradova, an activist of the Femen protest group, after she organized a protest against President Petro Poroshenko on Nov. 14.
The police said they were preparing to charge Vinogradova with hooliganism, and she faces from three to seven years in prison if convicted.
Vinogradova’s lawyer Yaroslav Yatsenko said that three plainclothes police officers, “like gangsters,” kidnapped her in a Kyiv café without identifying themselves.
Vinogradova staged a signature Femen bare-breast protest and set fire to a storefront decorative tram set up in front of a Roshen confectionery store owned by Poroshenko in Vinnytsya, the president’s political home base.
“In the beast’s lair, Vinnytsya, in front of the main Roshen store, a decorative tram has been set on fire,” Femen said. “The reason for the protest was the latest expose of chocolate peddler Petro Oleksiyevych (Poroshenko) in the Paradise Papers. Let the burning tram, like a chariot of fire, take Poroshenko to a place where there are no high taxes, no war, no poverty and no Ukrainians, who are so hated by the chocolate baron.”
The Paradise Papers, a major new leak of documents about offshore companies published on Nov. 5, has added to suspicions that Poroshenko was seeking tax benefits when setting up Prime Asset Partners Limited in the British Virgin Islands in 2014. Poroshenko and his lawyers deny any tax-minimization plans and argue that their aim was to pay as much in taxes in Ukraine as possible.
In October, Vinogradova also held a bare-breast protest and burned teddy bears in front of one of Poroshenko’s Roshen confectionary stores in Kyiv. She wore a Halloween costume and bared her breasts, which had “sweets or impeachment” written on them.
The protest follows the announcement by veterans of Ukraine’s volunteer Donbas Battalion and other units on Oct. 28 that they would boycott Poroshenko’s legal businesses and blockade businesses involved in his alleged corruption schemes.
The events come amid ongoing protests in front of the Verkhovna Rada that started when thousands rallied and set up more than 50 tents there on Oct. 17. The demonstators demand the creation of an anti-corruption court, the lifting of lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution, a fairer electoral law and a law on impeachment.
Meanwhile, in July Femen activist Anzhelina Diash was arrested for protesting against Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in Kyiv. Diash faces two to five years in prison on hooliganism charges, in what she believes to be a political case.
A Femen activist burns a decorative tram in front of a Roshen store in Kyiv on Nov. 15.
