Anti-war speech may be criminalised in Ukraine

Fact checked
Anti-war speech may be criminalised in Ukraine

An MP from President Poroshenko’s party in the Ukrainian parliament has submitted a bill seeking to criminalise public speech that reject the government’s narrative on the civil war, described as a military invasion by Russia.

RT report: The controversial bill amends the Ukrainian criminal code to make “public denial or justification of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine in 2014-2015” a felony.

The ‘crime’ would carry a penalty ranging from a heavy fine and up to a five-year jail term for repeat offences or convicts who held public office.

If the bill is signed into law, it would be the latest move to attack civil freedoms by Ukraine’s post-coup government defending its security policies from criticism.

Last week a Ukrainian court ordered the two-month detention of a journalist from western Ukraine who called for a boycott of the ongoing military draft. Ruslan Kotsaba stated that he would rather spend two to five years in prison for refusing to serve in the military than shoot at Ukrainians in what he described as a ‘fratricidal war’. Prosecutors charged him with high treason, a crime carrying a 15-year term in Ukraine.

The prosecution of Kotsaba was sharply criticized by Amnesty International, which labeled him a ‘prisoner of conscience’ and demanded his immediate release.

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.