06.11.2010
At a press conference on Friday the civic organizations which monitored the October 31 Local Elections gave their overall – and very negative - assessment. Olha Aivazovska, Head of the Civic Network OPORA said that the 2010 local elections could not be considered honest, transparent and democratic. She stressed that OPORA’s conclusions were based on the results of short- and long-term monitoring and that they applied the criteria set out in documents from the Venice Commission, the Copenhagen Conference and the OSCE.
25.10.2010
At the printing press Folio Plant, officers from the Kharkiv Prosecutor’s Office have uncovered 12.7 thousand undeclared ballot papers for the local elections in the Kharkiv region. This was reported by National Deputy Volodymyr Filenko. He reports that there are around 720 thousand ballot papers at the printing press, but that they had also found a great pile (12,700 in total) lying separately with the label reading “s/run”. When they asked, they were told that this stood for papers printed over the print run number.
23.10.2010
The Prosecutor’s Office has initiated a criminal investigation over the assault on Dementiy Bily, Editor of the newspaper “Vilny Vybir” [“Free Choice”] and Head of the Kherson Regional Branch of the Committee of Voters of Ukraine, yet is refusing to consider him a journalist.
22.10.2010
Volodymyr Yavorsky, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, considers that making historian Zabily’s case “top secret” is an attempt to restrict his right to defence and to avoid public scrutiny.
21.10.2010
The Verkhovna Rada has deferred consideration of the Law on Access to Public Information under 2 November this year. This decision was voted for by 251 National Deputies.
19.10.2010
The Kharkiv police on Friday searched the flat of the Deputy Editor of the newspaper “Novy Styl” [“New Style”, Petro Matviyenko. According to Mr Matviyenko, computer technology was removed with the drafts of articles as well as private correspondence. He believes that this is revenge by the police because he is trying to raise public and media attention to the disappearance of his colleague, Vasyl Klymentyev in August this year. The investigators are presently not commenting.
17.10.2010
During a search officially of the home of Vinnytsa Human Rights Group coordinator, Dmytro Groisman, carried out on Friday, lasting until 2 a.m. that night, the police removed two leaflets from a German anti-AIDS foundation, promoting safe sex, and a video to check it for possible pornography.
15.10.2010
14.10.2010
The Ministry of Internal Affairs Press Office informs that “four members of a left-wing political group” were detained on Maidan Nezalezhnosti [Independence Square] in Kyiv.
14.10.2010
The Head of the Kharkiv Regional Administration, Mykhailo Dobkin does not exclude the possibility of cases where teachers were forced to join the Party of the Regions under threat of dismissal.
13.10.2010
Ukraine has achieved a great level of media freedom but it must take urgent steps to safeguard it, Dunja Mijatovic, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, said today.
13.10.2010
The Internet publication 'Ukrainska Pravda has filed a civil suit against President Yanukovych with the High Administrative Court over the President’s refusal to reveal which joint stock company he is founder of. Ukrainska Pravda will be represented in court by Roman Holovenko from the Institute for Mass Information.
13.10.2010
The Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU] has issued a brief statement on the results of the first month of the election campaign.
06.10.2010
The Committee of Voters of Ukraine [CVU] believes that one of the serious risks of the present election campaign for the local elections is of widespread removal of the most popular mayoral candidates from the running the night before the elections.
06.10.2010
The Constitutional Court [CCU] has found unconstitutional the Law on Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine from 8 December 2004 No. 2222-IV citing violations in procedure for its examination and adoption.