Crowds of protesters and activists gathered in central Kyiv on the morning of Nov. 17 to travel to the home of Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and demand his resignation. The demonstrators blame him for law enforcement’s failure to investigate a series of attacks on Ukrainian activists this year.
Over a hundred people traveled by car and bus from the city center to a mansion on Minskyi Avenue in northern Kyiv, which is believed to belong to Avakov. There they held an hour-long protest outside the gates of the house. The main slogan of the demonstration was “Avakov out!”
The interior minister did not respond to the protest.
The demonstration follows the death of Kateryna Gandziuk, a civic activist from the southern city of Kherson, some 550 kilometers to the south of Kyiv. Gandziuk was attacked with acid on July 31 in her home town and died on Nov. 4 in a Kyiv hospital, sparking anger among many politically active Ukrainians.
Gandziuk is among 10 Ukrainian journalists and activists who have been killed since the EuroMaidan Revolution, which forced former President Viktor Yanukovych from power in 2014.
None the individuals who ordered the activists’ murders have been brought to justice.
The rally had only one goal: to make Avakov resign, said Kateryna Butko, an activist with Automaidan, an ongoing social movement of car owners that emerged during the EuroMaidan Revolution.
“All the attacks on activists and journalists are the result of sabotage and the lack of punishment for those who do not investigate the crimes,” Butko told the Kyiv Post.
Butko believes that the failure to investigate these crimes stems from the failure of Ukraine’s police reform, which began in 2015. The reform was not a success, Butko said, “even though Avakov had five years and a political force that supported him in parliament, as well as all the (possible) opportunities to conduct this reform.”
“We now think that the only way (Avakov) can at least somehow save face is to write a statement of resignation,” Butko added.
Among the protesters outside Avakov’s house were Serhiy Sternenko, an Odesa activist who survived a politically-motivated attack; Vitaliy Shabunin, who heads the Anti-Corruption Action Center’s executive board and has faced political harassment; Daria Kaleniuk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Action Center; and Oleksii Grytsenko, son of former defense minister and current presidential candidate Anatoliy Grytsenko.
