Day of Ukrainian Political Prisoner: commemorated for half a century, still relevant today

On January 12, Ukraine commemorates the Day of Ukrainian Political Prisoner, which was introduced in 1975 by Vyacheslav Chornovil. This date was chosen by the now deceased politician not by chance - on January 12-14, 1972, the Soviet authorities carried out the largest-scale repressions against Ukrainian dissidents. Mass detentions and arrests were revenge for their struggle for Ukrainian independence.

Vertep as a pretext for arrests

51 years ago, the KGB launched Operation Block in Ukraine - a massive wave of repression against the Ukrainian intelligentsia. Then most of the well-known representatives of the national democratic movement were arrested at the same time. In total, during 1972, 89 dissidents, the so-called Sixtiers, were arrested. By the end of 1974, 193 people were arrested. It was when Ivan Svitlychnyi, Yevhen Sverstiuk, Vasyl Stus, Zynoviy Antoniuk, Ivan Dziuba were arrested in Kyiv, and Vyacheslav Chornovil, Mykhailo Osadchyi, Ivan Hel, Stefania Shabatura, Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets (and later Ihor Kalynets) in Lviv.

The arrested intellectuals were accused of "Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism" and the distribution of samizdat (government-suppressed literature). Most of them received long prison sentences, some were placed in psychiatric hospitals.

It all started with Vertep, a portable puppet theater and drama, which presents the nativity scene in Ukrainian culture. In 1972, Ukrainian intellectuals greeted the new year with Christmas carols in Lviv. Among the carolers were Iryna Kalynets, Mykhailo Horyn, Stefania Shabatura and other Ukrainian artists. Vasyl Stus, who came to Lviv from treatment in Morshyn, also joined the caroling. And the initiator was a member of the human rights movement, doctor Olena Antoniv, former wife of Vyacheslav Chornovil. Rehearsals took place in her apartment on Spokiyna Street.

They went caroling at night on New Year's Eve to avoid being persecuted by the authorities. They visited famous people (for example, Roman Ivanychuk, Rostyslav Bratun, Mykola Petrenko and others). The participants planned to use the money collected by signing carols to help the then-political prisoners and their families and to publish Ukrainsky Visnyk, the first non-censored (i.e. samizdat) literary and publicist journal in Ukraine. But soon the 250 rubles they raised were needed to fund lawyers for their trials.

The present

Today, the Russian government is no different from its predecessors. It fully imitates the methods of fighting dissidents. During the temporary occupation of Crimea and some regions of eastern and southern Ukraine, the FSB launched a whole special operation - "neutralization" - against Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars. Putin's regime imprisons artists, civic activists, human rights defenders and everyone else who disagrees with the idea of the "Russian world". 

Representatives of Russian law enforcement agencies, Russian occupation authorities use torture, psychological pressure, falsification of evidence and other illegal methods of investigation on the occupied Ukrainian territories. Victims are deprived of the right to defense, and trials do not meet the standards of fair justice. 

According to the information of the NGOs Coalition, 127 persons imprisoned for political reasons in connection with the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine have been registered. 

According to Dilyara Abullayeva, mother of political prisoners Uzeyir and Teymur Abdullayev, "All victims of political persecution are "guilty" of only one thing - lack of loyalty to the occupation authorities, which fabricates criminal cases against them and accuses them of terrorism as punishment.”

First Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Emine Dzhaparova noted that the occupation authorities have sentenced Crimean political prisoners, and their total term of imprisonment is already more than 1,300 years. Today, more than 140 Ukrainian citizens remain illegally arrested by Russia on politically motivated charges, and this number continues to grow. 

There is virtually no legal way to avoid persecution by the Putin regime. In 2015, Ukraine managed to negotiate the transfer of a political prisoner, Deputy Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people Akhtem Chiygoz to Turkey. However, usually political prisoners are released only through exchanges for Russian supporters and war criminals. Thus, in 2016, Hennadiy Afanasiev, who had recently died defending his homeland in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, was released. In the same year, Nadiya Savchenko returned to Ukraine. On September 7, 2019, Oleg Sentsov, Stanislav Klykh, Roman Sushchenko, Oleksandr Kolchenko and others were released.