In Kyiv the Security Service of Ukraine illegally detained and continuously interrogated in the course of over 14 hours a historian who is a scholar of the Ukrainian liberation movement of the 20th century Ruslan Zabilyi. A criminal case against the scholar was officially launched the next day.
A Ukrainian historian was illegally detained by the Security Service of Ukraine and remanded in custody from 7.30 till 22.00. Mr. Zabilyi was not allowed to let his family know about his whereabouts and to find out the names of the security officers by whom he was being questioned. A laptop and a flash drive with research materials and papers were confiscated without a court warrant as is stipulated by Ukrainian legislation. The laptop also contained copies of declassified materials from the KGB archives. These historical documents became the grounds for the scholar’s detention.
The next day the Ukrainian Security Service launched a criminal case against Ruslan Zabilyi for ‘an attempt at disclosing a state secret’, it is working at identifying Zabily’s co-workers, i.e. historians who are preoccupied with the history of Ukraine in the years of the Soviet occupation.
The historian has stated that the information on his laptop was meant not only for his colleagues but also for journalists and anyone interested in the events of the last century. He views the actions of the Ukrainian Security Service as pressure and disruption of his activities as a historian. He claimed that his constitutional rights had been infringed. Zabilyi personally addressed head of the Security Service of Ukraine Valeriy Khoroshkovskyi with a demand to stop the persecutions and to return the confiscated belongings containing his research and intellectual property.
A similar statement in support of Zabilyi has been issued by civic activists, in particular the Ukrainian Helsinki Union and the Kharkiv human rights group. They are calling on the President and Parliament of Ukraine to stop the witch-hunt on historians waged by security officers.
Ruslan Zabilyi is also director of the National museum-memorial for the victims of occupational regimes “Prison at Lontskoho Street”. This museum was opened in Lviv in a former KGB and Gestapo prison. In June 1941, 1681 Lviv residents were killed there. There are only two museums of this kind in Eastern Europe – in Lviv and Vilnius.
On September 9 the Security Service of Ukraine blocked the access of the museum’s curators to their workplaces. Presently they continue to be barred from their computers and research. The display of the museum is still active and closely watched by the public of Lviv. On September 10 about 200 Lviv residents gathered near the building of the Security Service of Ukraine with a demand to stop the persecutions. Prominent Ukrainian political prisoners and dissidents who fought the totalitarian Soviet regime in the 60s view the actions of the Service’s chief Valeriy Khoroshkovkyi as neostalinist. Today near the cells where they had once been detained Iryna Kalynets, Ivan Hel and Yuriy Shukhevych called on diplomatic representatives and the world public at large to intervene.
After Yanukovych was sworn in as President of Ukraine censorship was introduced and pressure on the media and journalists was renewed. The Ukrainian Security Service was trying to bring pressure to bear on Borys Hudziak, Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, so that he should co-operate. It refused Niko Lange, a representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, entry into Ukraine and interrogated NGO‘s who were beneficiaries of the Soros Foundation in Ukraine.
The former head of the State Archives of the Ukrainian Security Service Volodymyr Viatrovych who was declassifying KGB documents in 2008-2010 claims that this is the way this organization is striving to impede work with the previously declassified documents as well as curb their further dissemination. He is also alleging that by keeping back documents the Security Service itself is breaking the law that bans withholding information about human rights abuses in Soviet times.
Ruslan Zabilyi was questioned by the security officers about the names of his fellow scholars in other countries who may have acquired recently declassified documents of the Soviet repressive machine. Marina Ostapenko, press secretary of the Ukrainian Security Service, said that Ruslan Zabilyi was attempting to disclose state secrets, but she failed to clarify what sort of secrets are contained in the documents about the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the fight against it on the part of the KGB.
Ruslan Zabilyi, 35 years old, historian, researcher of the liberation movement of the 20th century. Graduate of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv
In 2008-2009 – director of the Centre for the Study of the Liberation Movement which is an independent scholarly organization. As of 2009 Zabilyi is director of the National Museum-Memorial “Prison at Lontskoho Street” which was opened in a former KGB prison.
Scholarly interests: strategy and tactics of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.
14.09.2010
