Ukraine: please kill 'Odessa massacre' meme FFS

'Euromaidan' activists helping rescue people from fire at Trade Union House in Odesa, May 2 2014. Pic vasaphotography.com

Like deliberately missing a open goal in a penalty shootout, Ukraine is still failing to nail the meme that Maidan activists deliberately massacred pro-Russians in Odessa.

This meme has gone around the world (thank you John effin Pilger), and has driven actual lefties to sign up for the zombies running the 'People's Republics' in Eastern Ukraine - including Brits!

The meme ain't true, of course the Kremlin megarubles propaganda is BS, but once agin we have a vibrant Ukrainian civil society yellin that something must be done. They're right. They must be supported.

This is an open sore for the Maidan, for the 'Revolution of Dignity', and it must be closed.

Reblogged with permission.

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By Halya Coynash.

20 months after the deadly disturbances and fire in Odesa on May 2, 2014, Ukraine’s law enforcement bodies have not only failed to properly investigate the events and find those responsible, but are effectively stymieing the investigation. This has forced the 2 May Group, a civic initiative of journalists and various experts, to publicly express their lack of confidence in the Prosecutor General’s Office and Interior Ministry and speak of ‘clear signs of sabotage’.

There seems more than enough cause for such criticism. It is over two months since the International Advisory Panel’s Nov 4 report identified serious failings in the investigation and lack of any real progress. That report clearly stated that, given evidence suggesting police complicity, as well as omissions, and the failure of the emergency services to respond in time to the fire, the investigation needs to be carried out by a body independent of the Interior Ministry. The 2 May Group soon afterwards publicly called upon the authorities to pass the entire investigation over to the same Department for Special Investigations within the Prosecutor General’s Office that is finally, albeit slowly, making progress on investigating crimes committed against Euromaidan activists.

The criticism and such constructive recommendations have all been ignored. Instead the Interior Ministry team has been reduced to two investigators and there is no visible progress on any front.

There is, however, permanent activity on the information war front with Russia and pro-Russian organizations actively pushing a narrative about a ‘massacre’ with the Trade Union building claimed to have been set alight on purpose by ‘Ukrainian radicals’. These are lies that have been used actively to recruit young men to fight in Donbas, and are regularly touted around Europe via a suspiciously well-funded ‘victim’ and highly misleading exhibition.

The 2 May Group has worked tirelessly to refute the lies which are also debunked by the findings of the International Advisory Panel. This is simply ignored in the propaganda reports while the failings in the investigation are trumpeted and often claimed to be deliberate sabotage because of things that need to be hidden.

It is impossible not to share the 2 May Group’s frustration over the failed investigation. While criticism is mainly directed at the Prosecutor General’s Office [PGO] and Interior Ministry - the bodies purportedly investigating the events, the activists also criticize the Security Service or SBU. The latter has not initiated any criminal prosecutions on separatism charges for which there would be every justification. The 2 May Group writes that following Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the events in eastern Ukraine, some of the anti-Maidan groups, particularly Odesskaya Druzhyna and Narodnaya Druzhyna, “turned into an instrument for dividing Ukraine – so-called ‘federalization’”. It was members of Odesskaya Druzhyna who provoked the disturbances on that fatal day and there is plenty of evidence that this was a planned attack.

Whoever started the trouble, it turned into full-scale disturbances with weapons used by both anti-Maidan (or pro-federalism) and pro-Ukrainian unity supporters.

6 people were killed and a further 12 injured by gunshot wounds during the disturbances in the centre. 42 died as a result of the fire which broke out in the Trade Union building on Kulikovo Pole. The fire was caused by a Molotov cocktail, however these were being hurled by activists on both sides and specialists agree that there is no way of knowing whether the fatal incendiary device was thrown from outside the building, or from inside.

The Interior Ministry’s Central Investigative Department was put in charge of investigating the riots, establishing the causes of deaths earlier in the centre and in the Trade Union building. They were also responsible for identifying those directly responsible for deaths; establishing where the weapons had come from (and disappeared to); and establishing the motives of the organizers of the troubles.

This same police CID was entrusted with investigating suspected negligence by emergency services staff. Most, if not all the deaths in the Trade Union building would have been averted had the fire brigade not taken forty minutes to arrive, despite repeated calls. The Prosecutor General’s Office [PGO] was put in charge of investigating negligence by police officers.

Both PGO and the Interior Ministry promised a swift and open investigation, with Interior Minister Arsen Avakov also announcing that foreign specialists would be involved, and that cases would be passed to the court within 3 months.

Only one of the people currently facing charges – Serhiy Khodiyak, a Maidan activist - is accused of involvement in these deaths. He is not in custody and members of Euromaidan have consistently tried to obstruct court hearings into the charges against him.
Of the 21 pro-federalist activists held in detention for very long periods (with 5 still in SIZO or a remand centre], most are facing vague charges of involvement in riots which could just as well be laid against a huge number of other people that day.

There are very serious questions to be answered over why a crucial action plan codenamed Khvylya [Wave] was ready but not registered and therefore did not come into effect. Petro Lutsiuk, the head of the regional police at the time, was placed under house arrest on May 13, 2015, and charged with professional negligence for the failure to register the action plan. Initial optimism that this might indicate real, albeit belated, progress soon fizzled. Lutsiuk was released from house arrest, and although he is supposedly now at the stage of reading the material against him, members of the 2 May Group are sceptical about the case turning into a real prosecution.

There have been constant attempts to blame the events on Dmytro Fuchedzhy, then deputy head of the Odesa Regional Police, who fled shortly after the events and is now believed to in Transnistria. It is known that Fuchedzhy supported the pro-federalism camp on Kulikovo Pole and there is video footage showing Fuchedzhy leave the scene with a minor injury in an ambulance almost certainly containing anti-Maidan activist Vitaly Budko [‘Botsman’], a key murder suspect. It was Fuchedzhy who allowed the storming of the police station by pro-Russian activists on May 4 and he personally ordered the release of 63 anti-Maidan activists, most of him were able to escape prosecution. Despite all of this, Ukraine has still not bothered to have Fuchedzhy added to the international wanted list.

People being rescued from the fire

The investigation was hampered from the outset by the destruction of material evidence during the night after the disturbances when the communal services were deployed in cleaning the streets. The 2 May Group reports that there was no attempt to cordon off areas where crimes had been committed, nor to carry out a proper inspection of the terrain.

The Trade Union building in turn was only closed to public access a month after the fire. Incredibly, the official inspection of the building failed to notice evidence, including bullet marks, demonstrating that firearms had been used to shoot at pro-Ukrainian activists from within the building. This was only added to the file material after the 2 May Group’s expert pointed it out.

Weapons

The 2 May Group calls the list of firearms removed absurdly short and notes that video footage shows that a much greater number of weapons were used. Some were taken from anti-Maidan activists and handed to the police, however there is no information as to what happened to them. The weapons used to kill Euromaidan activists Ihor Ivanov and Andriy Biryukov, and anti-Maidan activist Hennady Petrov have never been found. This is despite the fact that the bullet which killed Andriy Biryukov came from a weapon which is quite unusual in Ukraine and needs a special licence.

There has been no more than a formal response to the Group’s demand that the Odesa Regional Prosecutor investigate allegations that could implicate one of his employees in the concealment of the ‘Vulcan TK’ automatic rifle Budko is believed to have used to kill Ihor Ivanov (see: Prosecutor suspected of involvement in Odesa May 2 tragedy)

The 2 May Group is convinced that the investigation into the fire “is clearly being sabotaged at the highest level in the Interior Ministry”.
The Prosecutor General’s Office has narrowed the number of police officers accused of criminal inaction to just one person – Lutsiuk and is openly sabotaging the transfer of this case to an investigative body independent of the police and PGO.

Maidan supporters desperately trying to save opponents from the fire

The charges against Lutsiuk could also be laid against Volodymyr Bodelan, then head of the Odesa Emergency Services. Bodelan has admitted that he was personally responsible for delaying the fire brigade for 40 minutes. He finished his contract as planned, then stood for election to parliament. He disappeared for a few months after Lutsiuk was arrested, and liberally gave interviews to the Russian media full of misleading information and minimizing his role in the events. He recently returned, and obviously has his reasons for believing himself to be safe from prosecution.

An internal inquiry with the emergency services department found that nobody had been at fault, and the supposed criminal investigation is being carried out, as the international panel observed, by the Interior Ministry which cannot be considered an independent body.

There are no suspects, which the 2 May Group points out, allows the Interior Ministry to drag out the case indefinitely.

Failure to properly investigate events in which people lost their lives is a clear breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. This, as well as the numerous other failings in the so-called investigation, make it extremely likely that the European Court of Human Rights will in future issue judgements against Ukraine.

Ukraine’s law enforcement bodies are thus sabotaging an investigation which is of critical importance for Odesa and for Ukraine as a whole, given the cynical propaganda lies circulated about the tragic events. It is not only the victims and their families who have been betrayed.


*Watch an interview with the May 2 Group on Ukraine Today.

* Pilger's Guardian article a week after the events included content directly lifted from debunked Russian propaganda - see the weaselly footnote added by the Guardian.

See also:

• Movement at last on Odesa 2 May investigation
• Finding the real culprits of the events in Odesa on May 2, 2014
• Russia Today, or why Odesa May 2 is different from Baltimore
• Odesa May 2 Investigation: A Failed Test for Ukrainian Justice
• More Evidence against Incendiary Lies about Odesa 2 May
• Continuing Obstruction of Odessa May 2 Investigation
• Propaganda that Kills
• Odessa May 2 trial turns into farce as Russia continues ‘massacre’ propaganda
• Bad Start to Crucial Odessa May 2 Trials
• Russia’s New Odessa File
• Odesa "Massacre" Propaganda vs. the Facts

When Stop The War directs kids to war, and other true tales

Book by STWC leader Andrew Murray. Cover picture shows the burning trade union building in Odessa "where 40 people died after supporters of the Kiev putsch government, Right Sektor activists and Chernomorets football ultras attacked."

The past two weeks has seen a unprecedented amount of attention on the Stop The War Coalition (STWC), because of their association with the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Endless press stories and media appearances for a leadership under siege.

The STWC response to the spotlight has been to label every criticism a 'smear' or a 'lie', however it has also been to engage in some tragic PR tactics. When the focus has shifted onto what they publish on their website the STWC response has been to start cleansing the website - and firing the poor Web Editor.

At the instigation of 'Soupy' a blog has been set up to cover what STWC are trying to hide or may be about to try to hide.

The Real Stop The War launched at the weekend and here is the content on Ukraine which I contributed.

When Stop The War directs kids to war

The STWC website has a number of posts about Ukraine,. The most egregious by far are by John Pilger.

Pilger methodically repeats a series of Kremlin war propaganda* memes: That the 2014 Revolution of Dignity was a fascist coup (see the response to this pap by Ukrainian socialists and anarchists I link to in my post on Corbyn's Ukraine fantasies); That there were pogroms against Russian speakers - a line lifted from Putin himself and a vicious fantasy.

The idea of NATO 'expanding Eastwards' and 'threatening Russia' - central to Pilger but also STWC more widely- not only ignores the agency of Eastern Europeans but also indulges one of the central myths used by Russia's imperial rulers to maintain their rule.

It's his post on the so-called 'Odessa massacre' that is the most dangerous. The violent events of May 2, 2014 were immediately seized on by Russia to paint Ukraine as fascist, Russia even toured exhibitions around Europe. Citizen investigations have shown that what happened was nothing like Russia says (and Pilger loyally repeats).

Among the mountain of falsehoods, Pilger includes the supposed eyewitness testimony of a doctor. This lie was very quickly debunked as Kremlin disinformation. There's a weasel note on the post, copied from The Guardian, which fails to say that this information has been proven false.

The May 2 events have been widely used as propaganda and have led to a number of left-wingers (including Brits) traveling to Ukraine to 'fight the fascists'. In reality they have arrived in 'Republics' where actual fascists wield power, anti-Semiticism is endemic, homosexuality is illegal as are free trade unions and humanitarian agencies are banned because they might 'foment counter-revolution'.

Those thug 'Republics' are backed by STWC leaders Lindsey German and Andrew Murray. They, along with Pilger, back war on 'fascist' Ukraine and could care less for the fate of any mugs encouraged by their website to participate.

*See this fantastic Lithuanian documentary for more on Russia's war propaganda machine (in English).



See Also:

• Deselect Stop The War Coalition
• Have Stop The War Coalition finally jumped the shark?
• Donbas can starve say 'rebel' leaders

Ukraine's #fail over Odesa 'massacre' meme

'Euromaidan' activists helping rescue people from fire at Trade Union House in Odesa, May 2 2014. Pic vasaphotography.com

Since May 2014 Russian propagandists and fellow travelers, like John Pilger*, have made hay with the events during disturbances in Odesa. The fire which killed dozens of people has been dubbed by them 'the Odesa massacre'. Russia has toured exhibitions around Europe and pumped out massive amounts of material using the events to condemn Ukraine as 'fascist'.

Most disturbingly, the events have been cited by numerous left-wing activists who have traveled to the Donbas to 'fight the fascist regime'.

Civil society activists in Odesa. the 'May 2 Group'*, have conducted extensive investigations showing that the events were very different to how they have been painted but, as Halya Colnash explains, their work is being cut off at the knees by the useless Ukrainian state. This failure by the state to do its job properly is handing the Russians and their supporters an undeserved and dangerous propaganda victory.

Reblogged with permission.

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Despite the clear importance of a proper investigation into the deadly disturbances and fire in Odesa on May 2, 2014, and the mileage gained by Russia’s propaganda machine from any delay, the number of investigators has been drastically reduced, just when they seemed to be making headway. The trial of one man facing serious charges is constantly obstructed and the ongoing detention of others accused of lesser offences has already been used by a Moscow-backed initiative to claim political prisoners in Ukraine. The Council of Europe’s International Advisory Panel has been assessing the investigation. Its report, due at the end of October, 2015, seems likely to be critical. (It was, see report here.)

It was widely feared in Spring 2014 that a scenario similar to the orchestrated seizure of control by Kremlin-backed militants in the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts could be expected in Odesa. There had been express warnings from both the Security Service [SBU] and Interior Ministry of likely trouble, in particular with respect to a football match scheduled on May 2 between the Odesa Chernomorets team and Kharkiv’s Metalist, and the pro-Ukrainian unity march before it.

A crucial action plan codenamed Khvylya [Wave] had been prepared for the event of disturbances, yet was not registered and therefore did not come into effect.

People being rescued from the fire

Six people died of gunshot wounds and many others were injured during disturbances in the city centre after the pro-unity march was attacked by anti-Maidan (and pro-Russian) activists. The first two people killed were Euromaidan activists and the news of those deaths was instrumental in turning the disturbances uncontrolled and violent. More weapons began being brought to the scene and the other four deaths were of anti-Maidan activists. A large number of people were injured, including police officers. A further 42 people – all anti-Maidan activists - died as a result of a fire in the Trade Union building on Kulikovo Pole. That fire was certainly caused by a Molotov cocktail, however these were being hurled by activists on both sides and specialists agree that there is no way of knowing whether the fatal incendiary device was thrown from outside the building, or from inside. There would have been far fewer casualties had the emergency services responded when the first reports of fire were received. The 40 minute delay was fatal.

There are clearly major questions needing to be answered, most crucially:

• Who was responsible for not registering and/or implementing the Action Plan?
• Why were the emergency services so criminally slow in arriving at a fire they were informed about repeatedly from the beginning?
• The guilt or innocence must also be established of specific individuals.

Investigators

Maidan supporters desperately trying to save opponents from the fire

On Aug 18, Svitlana Pidpala from the May 2 Group reported that the investigative team was being reduced from 8 to 3 investigators. Her frustration was palpable. After a year the investigators, she says, had processed around 10 criminal prosecutions, some of them already in court, and they were also investigating others. She names, for example, the case of Astakhov who is believed to have brought weapons and ammunition to the centre of Odesa that day.

Now, suddenly, the team has been reduced with the head of the team, Mykola Rudnytsky recalled to Kyiv. “They reduced the team immediately after specific results appeared and criminal proceedings were initiated against the Emergencies Ministry and other cases. And after specific representatives of the Interior Ministry system began to be affected”, Pidpala writes. She is convinced that the removal of Rudnytsky and others is an attempt to effectively stop the investigation and suggests that this may be because it could get too interesting.

The Police

On May 13, Petro Lutsyuk, ex-head of the Odesa regional police was placed under house arrest on charges of professional negligence (Article 367 of the Criminal Code). Lutsyuk had given a verbal order for the Action Plan to be implemented and signed the document confirming this order. He is accused of not having ensured that the Plan was registered and implemented. Lutsyuk was freed from house arrest on Sept 1, with the court not convinced by the prosecutor’s argument that Lutsyuk could abscond or try to influence the investigation if free.

Lutsyuk’s deputy, Dmytro Fuchedzhy has been on the international wanted list since May 2014, and is believed to be in hiding in Transnistria. In his case, there are grounds for suspecting him of helping the anti-Maidan activists. He is believed to have enabled Vitaly Budko, known as ‘Botsman’, who is clearly visible in video footage shooting from a Kalashnikov rifle at pro-unity activists, to have escaped.

The May 2 Group have on a number of occasions stressed that they have found no evidence of a general police conspiracy and say that many officers were themselves injured trying to deal with the disturbances.

Prosecutions

There is almost no movement on an important bill No. 2885, tabled by Oleksy Honcharenko on May 20. This proposes to waive liability for all those accused only of taking part in the disturbances. In June, the relevant parliamentary committee found the bill to be in line with the Constitution, but no more has been heard of it since. Honcharenko stresses that the bill is aimed at easing social tension. It could also help identify those responsible for the violence. At the moment, activists are nervous to come forward, fearing that they will face charges of participating in the riot.

Another shot showing rescue attempt

If the law is to be passed, then there is no excuse for delay given the number of people currently in detention who would be directly affected. The May 2 Group have long expressed concern over the arbitrary nature of the charges against all but one of the 21 anti-Maidan activists on trial over the disturbances. For a long time, all were accused of the same vague “participation in mass riots’. The charge is now of causing mass disturbances in the course of which they attacked a peaceful march, using firearms, stones, Molotov cocktails, etc.

The charges are more serious, but the very fact that the wording is the same in each case raises doubts about how proven they are in any given case. This is especially disturbing since until recently, 11 of the young men had been in custody for well over a year. A court on Aug 27 released three of them pending trial, but that still leaves 8 men in detention.

There appears to be hard evidence against only one defendant – Serhiy Dolzhenkov – who is alleged to have organized and led the attack on the pro-Ukrainian unity march. Artem Davydchenko is in hiding but would otherwise be facing the same charges.

The May 2 Group believe that Budko (Botsman) was provably responsible for at least the first death of Ihor Ivanov.

There is also Serhiy Khodiyak, a Euromaidan activist, who is charged with shooting at people on Hretska Square and causing the death of at least one person (Yevhen Losynsky), Tetyana Herasimova from the May 2 Group, says that it is likely that Khodiyak’s lawyer will seek to get the charge of murder withdrawn since no weapon was ever found. Khodiyak was initially placed only under house arrest, while others, facing lesser charges, were remanded in custody. House arrest can only be extended twice and there are now no restrictions on his movements.

His separate case has just been transferred to the same court as the cases of the anti-Maidan activists. There has up till now been very little progress, largely because hearings into his case are regularly obstructed by members of the ultra-nationalist Right Sector who clearly don’t want him tried at all.

It has been argued that Khodiyak should be acquitted on the grounds that he was defending the country. There probably is reason to believe that a takeover, similar to that in parts of Donbas, was being planned and that the tragic events of May 2 were the jolt that saved Odesa from this fate. It is harder to accept that the use of firearms by anybody during riots can be viewed as necessary defence. In Kyiv on Aug 31, 2015, an activist angered by the ‘decentralization’ bill passed in its first reading in parliament threw a grenade causing the death of three National Guard conscripts. He may well have believed he was defending his country in opposing the bill. Many of the MPs who voted for the bill may equally have viewed their support as defence of the country, as a necessary measure, vital to ensuring an end to the conflict in Donbas.

'Pro-Russians' shooting demonstrators prior to the fire

Justification of one killing and not another is seriously dubious from a legal point of view and politically very dangerous. It is the country’s leaders ultimately who will end up making decisions which are not their prerogative. In neighbouring Russia, it is increasingly people who oppose the regime of Vladimir Putin who are accused of being against the state. Rule of law demands a different approach.

Respect for the law and the value of human life are the paramount reason why Ukraine’s leaders must make good their commitment to properly investigate the events of May 2, 2014. They should also, however, consider the damage their inaction is doing Ukraine. Moscow and the Russian media have pushed claims of a ‘massacre’ from the outset, using cynical lies and deliberately edited video footage to distort the truth. It is likely that they will continue to do so in any case, but they are only helped by Ukraine’s failure to fully examine what went wrong that day and ensure that those responsible are held to answer.

*Watch an interview with the May 2 Group on Ukraine Today.

* Pilger's Guardian article a week after the events included content directly lifted from debunked Russian propaganda - see the weaselly footnote added by the Guardian.

See also:

• Movement at last on Odesa 2 May investigation
• Finding the real culprits of the events in Odesa on May 2, 2014
• Russia Today, or why Odesa May 2 is different from Baltimore
• Odesa May 2 Investigation: A Failed Test for Ukrainian Justice
• More Evidence against Incendiary Lies about Odesa 2 May
• Continuing Obstruction of Odessa May 2 Investigation
• Propaganda that Kills
• Odessa May 2 trial turns into farce as Russia continues ‘massacre’ propaganda
• Bad Start to Crucial Odessa May 2 Trials
• Russia’s New Odessa File
• Odesa "Massacre" Propaganda vs. the Facts

Ukraine: Get it together on LGBT rights

Photo from the VKontakte page for the Odesa Festival

It is both disturbing and frustrating to read, yet again, of Ukraine blocking LGBT rights, in this case the right to demonstrate.

As Maxim Eristavi wrote last year, gay people were part of the Maidan demonstrations that overthrew the corrupt government of Yanukovych and Eristavi counted seven among the 'Heavenly Hundred' murdered by Berkut/Russian special forces. He also wrote about the spinelessness shown by the EU on LGBT rights in their negotiations with Ukraine - a fact which has gone unreported and completely undermines Russian propaganda.

That Western pressure can work was shown when President Poroshenko said that the Kyiv Pride march should be allowed to go ahead, dismissing Mayor Klitscho's reasoning. I have no doubt that diplomatic or other pressure on Poroshenko led him to say that.

Western supporters of Ukraine and Western LGBT rights groups must keep on the pressure and must put a boot up the backside of the EU. Ukraine has no excuses, none, and must be firmly told that. We must have the back of our brave comrades in Ukraine.

Reblogged with permission.

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By Halya Coynash

The Odesa District Administrative Court has allowed an application from the Odesa City Council and banned the Equality March planned by the LGBT community for Aug 15. The grounds presented and accepted by the court were that disturbances were likely and the authorities could not guarantee law and order.

The application, heard on Aug 12, was supported by the Odesa Police. Kirill Bodelan, Press Secretary for the Odesa Pride 2015 Festival told Dumskaya that the authorities had tried to get all Festival events from Aug 13-15 banned. They wanted to prohibit even the organizers from gathering in groups of more than 3. The court hearing apparently went on until 2 a.m. “After long arguments only the march was banned”, Bodelan says.

Interfax Ukraine reports that the applicants claimed that there was a negative attitude among the public to the Festival, and a high likelihood of violence to participants in the march and disruption of public order. The court also noted that football matches were scheduled for Aug 14 and 16, and ultimately concluded that the march could present a real danger and threat to public order, and to the safety both of participants and other members of the public.

The organizers say that over 200 people, including foreigners, have registered for the Festival and they are adamant that it will take place. They have, however, encountered other disturbing problems with people refusing to rent out venues for the events.

Mob rule?

There are a number of right-wing organizations, especially Right Sector, who have not only expressed antagonism to the LGBT community, but have threatened members with violence. They are almost certainly to blame, together with VO Svoboda thugs, for the violence in Kyiv during and after the May Equality March.

Their homophobia is not a valid excuse for restricting citizens’ rights. This was in fact affirmed by President Petro Poroshenko on the eve of the Kyiv Equality March. He was responding after Right Sector came out with anti-LGBT and anti-western statements identical to those regularly heard in Russia. Right Sector also issued an appeal to the Mayor of Kyiv, Vitaly Klichko asking that the march be banned. The authors of this opus claimed, without providing any evidence, that “the public are very negative in their attitude to such LGBT actions. Most Kyiv residents are believers and against such a phenomenon.” More details of the ‘arguments’ presented: United in Homophobic Bigotry: Right Sector echoes Russian anti-LGBT line

The Kyiv March did take place with a very large contingent of police brought in to maintain order. Five police officers were injured during the march, one very seriously.  The Gay Alliance and other civic activists initiated a collection for the injured officer who has thankfully recovered. 10 participants were attacked by masked thugs, presumed to have been from the same far-right parties, after they dispersed. While commending the efforts of the police and National Guard, Amnesty International in Ukraine was still critical, saying that the authorities should have taken better measures to ensure the marchers’ safety after the event.

Odesa’s different path

It may be understandable, but it is also disturbing that it should be Odesa which has now decided to ban an analogous march. This is the city which on May 2, 2014, saw violent disturbances and the tragic fire in the Trade Union House, with the loss of 48 lives.

One of the reasons why the events got out of control lies with the police. 15 months later there is frustratingly little progress in establishing who was to blame for the failure to implement an action plan. This had been drawn up specifically to prevent disturbances that day before, during and after a planned pro-unity demonstration and football match  (See: Odesa May 2 Investigation: A Failed Test for Ukrainian Justice as well as some limited progress here).

There were well-founded reasons to anticipate trouble back in April-May 2014, with Odesa seeming the obvious next target for Russia’s aggression after Donbas. The uses the Russia’s propaganda machine has made of the tragedy of May 2, 2014 have only heightened concerns, as have the string of terrorist attacks and separatist fakes.

There may well be grounds for concern now, but these are only heightened when the authorities, police and court are all willing to restrict people’s rights, claiming that they cannot protect them from homophobic thugs.