We Object to the Illegal Search and Seizure
at Apartment of Yurii Sheliazhenko in Kyiv
World BEYOND War
(August 3, 2023) — Yurii Sheliazhenko’s apartment was broken into today — apparently by the Security Service of Ukraine.
Videos are posted here.
Yurii Sheliazhenko, PhD, is a Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. He is based in Ukraine. Yurii is executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, a board member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection, and a council member of the International Peace Bureau. He obtained a Master of Mediation and Conflict Management degree in 2021 and a Master of Laws degree in 2016 at KROK University.
In addition to his participation in the peace movement, he is a journalist, blogger, human rights defender, and legal scholar, an author of academic publications and a lecturer on legal theory and history. He has been a facilitator for World BEYOND War’s online courses. Yurii is a winner of the International Peace Bureau’s 2022 Sean MacBride Peace Prize.
Yurii and the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement have always opposed both sides of the current [Russia-Ukraine] war. They are now apparently being accused of supporting the Russian side. It is extremely common for war supporters to deny the possibility of opposing both sides of a war and to conclude that anyone who does so must actually support whichever side the war supporter opposes. But they will find no actual evidence of Yurii having supported either side.
We demand that Yurii’s rights to conscientious objection and free speech be respected by a nation that claims to be waging war for democracy and human rights.
ACTION: Tell Ukraine to Drop
Prosecution of Peace Activist Sheliazhenko
ActionNetwork
On August 3, 2023, World Beyond War received the troubling news that Yurii Sheliazhenko, our board member in Ukraine, had been arrested and formally charged with the crime of “justifying Russian aggression.” The evidence is this statement, which explicitly condemns both Russian and Ukrainian aggression.
In the last message on his Faebook page, Sheliazhenko wrote: “Some people from Security Service of Ukraine (or so they say) are going to enter my home. They said they have court decision regarding a search. They don’t say their names. I refused to open doors, called police and lawyer.”
It appears that Sheliazhenko—the leader of the Ukrainian Peace Movement—has been “detained” by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
Please sign this petition
To: Ukrainian Government
We call on you to drop any legal proceedings against Yurii Sheliazhenko, and to respect human rights, the right to conscientious objection, and the right to freedom of speech. The absurdity of prosecuting someone for justifying Russian war-making on the basis of a statement in which he has explicitly condemned Russian war-making, is matched by the absurdity of waging war in the name of freedom and democracy while engaging in this sort of harassment of citizens. We urge you to do better.
Below in English machine-translation is a letter from Yurii Sheliazhenko to SBU (Security Service of Ukraine) investigator Novak O.S.
OBJECTION AND COMPLAINT OF
VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Today, 08/03/2023, in the first half of the day, unknown people started breaking in the door to my apartment at [address delete]. When I asked who it was, they told me that it was the SBU. They refused to introduce themselves. They said they had a search warrant, but refused to read it.
I called the police in case it is not the SBU, but criminals, as well as the lawyers of O. Veremienko and S. Novytska, in case it is really an investigator, who for some reason illegally does not identify himself.
I also received phone calls from numbers unknown to me from persons who introduced themselves as representatives of the police, but did not name themselves and said that they checked the documents and under the door of the alleged SBU, but refused to inform me of the names and titles of the persons allegedly from the SBU and refused to read the court order, so I doubted it was really the police.
I asked, if it is really the SBU, to wait 45 minutes for my lawyer to arrive, but they did not wait, did not introduce themselves and did not read the statement so that I could open the door — and they broke the door.
Subsequently, investigative actions (search) began without the presence of a lawyer, and they forcibly took away my Oikutel mobile phone number …. , on which I used to record illegal actions when they broke into my door and did not introduce themselves.
From SBU investigator Novak, I received a document similar to a copy of the ruling of the Pechersk District Court dated July 5, 2023, in which, on the basis of conjectures, the alleged justification of Russian aggression (against which I constantly speak out when carrying out non-violent resistance to aggression, as a pacifist) and the alleged obstruction of activity of The Armed Forces of Ukraine (although, as a pacifist, I criticize and loudly condemn all armed forces, starting with the Russian ones, I have never done anything illegal that could even with a stretch be competently qualified under the relevant article of the Criminal Code of Ukraine) permission was granted to search me, seize documents , equipment, etc., which may contain evidence of the commission of the specified crimes.
During the search, nothing even remotely similar to evidence of justification of Russian aggression or any other criminal actions of mine was found. Therefore, I object to the seizure of any materials, since none of the materials and equipment that were found are and cannot be evidence of the commission of crimes on my part, and also, taking into account the violations of my rights during these investigative actions, obtained illegally and have no evidentiary value.
In addition, from the words of the person who presented a certificate similar to the certificate of the SBU investigator Novak O.S., I learned that as a “justification of Russian aggression” the investigation absurdly considers the “Peaceful Agenda for Ukraine and the World”, approved by the decision of the meeting of the Public organization “Ukrainian Movement of Pacifists”, and the accompanying letter to the Office of the President of Ukraine, with which this statement was sent.
Investigator Novak also stated that there is an expert opinion that this statement allegedly justifies Russian aggression, which is absurd, because the statement condemns Russian aggression, and if such a conclusion really exists, it must be illiterate, inconsistent with objective reality and, perhaps, fabricated from the motives of ideological hatred of pacifism, which is unprofessional for any scientist, and therefore, most likely, drawing up such a conclusion may have signs of forging documents, exceeding official powers, giving a knowingly false conclusion by an expert.
In general, judging by the court decision, which conveys the position of the investigation regarding the alleged criminality of the activities of the human rights and peace movement, I believe that this criminal proceeding is illegal, unlawful and politically motivated, a manifestation of repression against the peace movement.
Our organization is part of the international networks of the peace movement, in particular, the International Peace Bureau (Nobel laureate in 1910), whose representatives were briefly informed about the persecution of the peace movement in Ukraine under the fabricated and slanderous pretext.
In connection with the above
I DEMAND:
- To stop obstructing the legitimate human rights activities of me personally, the public organization “Ukrainian Movement of Pacifists” and the peace movement in general. Pacifists are on every side of every war and offer non-violent resistance, including by criticizing all human rights abuses, war and militarism, including Putin’s criminal militarism and brutal aggression against Ukraine.
- As a result of the current actions of the SBU, I feel like a victim not only of the Russian aggressors, but also of the repressive militarist machine of the Ukrainian state, in particular the special services, which, due to the lack of work of the parliament and the VRU Commissioner for Human Rights, feel impunity when human rights are violated due to insufficient democratic civilian control in the sphere of security and defense, which, by the way, is one of the goals of our organization, against which these shameful and illegal repressions by the SBU were initiated.
- Do not seize ANYTHING, as NO evidence of any illegal actions by me or anyone else was found during the search.
- Give me the opportunity to familiarize myself with the materials of the criminal proceedings and especially with the so-called expert opinion, so that I can study and review it myself from a professional point of view, as a doctor of philosophy in law, and involve independent experts to review this document (if its content corresponds to the words of the investigator Novak, this document must be non-scientific and must be evidence of the commission of a crime by an expert).
Yu.V. Shelyazhenko
