Yulia Tymoshenko has been imprisoned for over two years.
Her trial and conviction were adjudged by many international organizations, such as Danish Helsinki Committee, to have been selective and politically motivated.
On April 30, 2013 the European Court of Human Rights issued a judgement declaring Ms. Tymoshenko’s pre-trial detention had been arbitrary; the lawfulness of her detention had not been properly reviewed; and, that she had no possibility to seek compensation for her unlawful deprivation of liberty.
On September 5, 2013 the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) published the report upon their December 2012 visit to Ukraine. The report contains the first official proof that physical force has been used against Yulia Tymoshenko during her forced illegal transportation from Kachanivka penal colony to Kharkiv hospital on April 20, 2012. The CPT investigation concluded that Tymoshenko’s rights had been violated on several Articles of the European Convention of Human Rights.
Last year the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Mrs. Tymoshenko deploring the sentencing of the former Prime Minister, and called for the Ukrainian government to release her unconditionally.
Western politicians, ranging from Hillary Clinton, the former US secretary of state, to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have all called for her release.
The ECHR are currently evaluating whether her human rights were breached during her trial itself. A verdict in her favour, is most likely.
Former President of Poland and co-head of the European Parliament monitoring mission to Ukraine, Aleksander Kwasniewski, has met Tymoshenko many times over the last months and has stated Tymoshenko is ill and that needs surgery, and given her mistrust of the Ukrainian health service, such treatment should be conducted abroad.
Despite all of this, many serious Ukrainian commentators still consider she should do "the right thing", "confess her sins", ask for forgiveness from her persecutors...as if this will somehow resolve all of the county's ills, permit the signing of the European Union Association Agreement and Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with Ukraine, and open the doors to the EU.
Other serious commentators seem to imagine these agreements will be signed, even if she continues to be detained and that closer ties with the EU will be the main plank of Yanukovych's 2015 presidential re-election platform.
Before her trial and subsequent arrest Tymoshenko was advised by intermediaries to flee the country...she knew what to expect having spent several weeks in prison during Kuchma's presidency, but despite this, did not run. [Unlike Yanukovych and his pals who after the Orange Revolution Yanukovych ran like rats and disappeared for many months...]
What do they want from this woman?
Several years ago I saw, on Polish television, a public service advert for a society for the prevention of cruelty to children. It showed a wimpering little girl with a bruised and bloody face cowering in the corner of a room. A nasty-looking woman, probably her mother, stands over her and scowls: "It is all your fault...you see to what you have driven me to..."
ps. The main reason Yanukovych has turned westward is because Ukraine is paying far too much for gas, despite the Kharkiv Accords negotiated by Yanukovych. In this sense both he and Tymoshenko have been shafted by Putin over the price of gas. Yet he is still in his palace, and she is behind bars.
2 comments:
The obvious answer to the question is that they want to keep Tymoshenko in prison until she no longer poses any political threat to Yanukovych and the mafia/commmunist alliance ruling Ukraine. A week ago the Kyivpost wrote about Yanukovych's alleged game plan for signing the AA, that "he hopes all leaders of the 28 EU nations will simply overlook that his political rival, ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, remains in prison". If indeed it is adequate to talk about a "game plan" when it concerns a man of such limited intellectual capacity as Yanukovych, I would rather say that his game plan from the start has consistently been: convince the EU that Tymoshenko is a criminal who deserves to be in jail, and if they are not convinced step up the smear campaign with new charges, accusing her of ever more serious
crimes until something sticks. The culmination of this game plan so far, is of course the charges of involvement in murder. However, even if Yanukovych has not
realised it, his spin-doctors seems to have: despite the murder charges the EU are still not convinced that Tymoshenko is a criminal who deserves to be in jail. Not being able to make Yanukovych change his game plan, the only possible way out that his spin-doctors can hope for is that EU finally will give in and accept that Yanukovych has removed his main political rival by means of kangaroo courts and political show trials. The bizarre allegations from the Yanukovych spin-doctors and lobbyists, that Tymoshenko herself is to blame for being an obstacle to the signing of the AA in Vilnius, is a clear indication of a growing desperation on their part.
Someone has to be blamed for a failure, and the smallest child can see how they are now trying to shift the blame from Yanukovych to Tymoshenko. It is typical of the
cowardly inclination in Ukrainian politics never to take any responsibility, always run away and blame others. However, I think many will instead draw another
conclusion, namely that Yanukovych is weak and scared, even of a woman who is jailed and deprived of everything, while Tymoshenko appears strong and courageous, still after two years of humiliation and maltreatment. Tymoshenko did not run away, she stayed and defended herself and her actions even though she knew the verdict was decided from the start; she did not try to blame others in order to save herself. That is also a reason why she is so envied and hated by those who lack such virtues.
Bernard is exactly spot on.
Plus - they want blood.
They want revenge, because Tymoshenko eliminated Firtash/RosUkrEnergo as a corrupt middleman in the gas deals between Putler and Ukraine, thus eliminating a huge source of funding for the Bolshevik Mafia Regionnaires - including Yanusvoloch.
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