Hanna Sinkova, journalist at informator.su
The first reports are coming in about those activists arrested near Kharkiv or in it.
In particular, these reports to INFORMATOR mention that law enforcement and separatists, armed with automatic rifles, were waiting for them at entrances to the Kharkiv Region on both sides of the road.
Ordinary police made up a majority of the law enforcement personnel, but soldiers from the disbanded Berkut special forces and soldiers from Sokil’ special forces also took part in the arrests. The latter, after breaking bus windows, leapt inside and took activists out onto the road, and then laid them out on the pavement.
They beat them without giving any reason. They robbed them; they even took away crosses and icons from the patriots. They took domestic and foreign passports, money, phones, and other documents. With anyone who had rings on, they put knives up to their fingers and said, “Take it off, or we’ll take it off with your finger.” One of the activists got stabbed twice through his bulletproof vest.
Currently all the activists are traveling to Kyiv to take photos of their beatings and complain to human rights activists about law enforcement’s actions.
Earlier, it was reported that orders from Kyiv had been given to arrest activists in Kharkiv, and Oleh Medunets’, from the Fatherland (Bat’kivshchyna) Party, called on people not to criticize the police, because “we don’t have any others.”
Note. In one photo, Serhiy holds an identity card for a People’s Deputy assistant. This identity card didn’t spare him from blows, but at least they feared taking it away from him.
Hanna Sin’kova fb, journalist at informator.su
Translated by William Risch
