The Anti-Corruption Action Center, one of Ukraine’s leading watchdogs, reported on Aug. 2 that the tax police opened a criminal case against the organization.
One of the center’s legal representatives received a letter saying that the case on yet unknown charges was opened on June 9, with no details specified.
The case comes on the heels of a mass smear campaign against the watchdog and its employees, especially its head, activist Vitaliy Shabunin.
The tax police, a government agency with a bad reputation for prosecuting businesses, was supposed to be liquidated when the Verkhovna Rada approved a new Tax Code in 2016. However, the liquidation was postponed until an alternative new body, Financial Police, was established.
Olena Shcherban, chief lawyer and a board member of the Anti-Corruption Action Center or Antac, believes the tax police tries to “find dirt” on the watchdog and fears that eventually they will get access to Antac’s documents, search the offices and wiretap their board members.
Yaroslav Yurchyshyn of Transparency International Ukraine said the case has all signs of political persecution by the state.
Shabunin, who heads the watchdog, believes that the investigation is part of a “continuous attack” on the Antac that aims to destroy the organization.
“After two months of investigating, they (the tax police) have nothing to say about the allegations, because there were no violations on our part,” Shabunin said.
The letter from the tax police says that the case was opened after an appeal from the third party.
Shabunin suspects that the person that initiated the investigation was Pavlo Pynzenyk, a lawmaker with the People’s Front party who used to work for influential ex-lawmaker Mykola Martynenko, an ally to ex-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk.
Pynzenyk didn’t respond to requests for comments from the Kyiv Post.
Previous attacks
It’s not the first time Antac came under fire from the state.
In March 2016, the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine started an investigation against the watchdog for alleged embezzlement of the grant money that Antac received from U.S. government. The case was closed, however, after the U.S. embassy issued an official statement explaining that they didn’t request the Prosecutor General’s Office or any other governmental office to investigate the use of U.S. funds allocated to Ukraine.
A year later, the state’s fight against anti-corruption activists intensified.
On March 27, President Petro Poroshenko signed the amendments to the Law on Prevention of Corruption that oblige anti-corruption activists to file electronic asset and income declarations identical to those of public officials. Later, Poroshenko submitted to parliament a bill that softens the amendments, but it is yet to be voted on.
Another blow came on May 23, when Pynzenyk showed in the Verkhovna Rada a documentary called “How Antac works off the grant money.” The movie aimed to show that Antac members embezzle grant money.
In 2016, Antac received $419,458 in grants from George Soros’ International Renaissance Foundation, USAID, the governments of the Czech Republic and Netherlands.
Pynzenyk said that he will submit the evidence of embezzlement to the General Prosecutor’s Office, State Fiscal Service, and to embassies of the G7 member states which have been giving significant aid to Ukraine for the implementation of anti-corruption programs in the country.
The film that investigated Antac was produced by National Interest, a non-profit organization that launched their website on May 22. As of August, it produced only one investigation – that of Antac.
It didn’t stop there.
In April, several people came to protest Shabunin’s “corruption” near the house in Kyiv where the activist lives with his family. When approached, the participants appeared to not know what their protest was about, leading to suspicions that they were hired.
Shabunin claimed it was organized by the Deputy Head of the SBU Security Service Pavlo Demchyna. The SBU brushed off the claims.
However, an investigation by Radio Svoboda found that a mid-ranking SBU employee was at the protest and commissioned a video footage of it.
Fake news report
In late May, a video was uploaded on YouTube that appeared to be a fake news report by a non-existing American TV Channel News 24 about the investigation against Shabunin in Ukraine.
In it, the host says that “Vitaliy Shabunin continues to get press coverage both at home and in international news sources about his suspicious personal finances.”
However, the host in the newscast, Michael-John Wolfe, turned out to be an actor who was hired to do it.
When contacted by the Kyiv Post, Wolfe said that he had no idea who Vitaliy Shabunin was when he recorded the video.
“I assumed the videos were made by his friends or someone playing a prank on him,” Wolfe said about the video, adding that he was hired to do it through an anonymous platform for freelancers, Fiverr.com.
