Brussels, 27/04/2012 (Agence Europe) - Reacting to much criticism from Europe (see EUROPE 10603), the Ukranian president, Viktor Yanukovych, promised on Thursday 26 April to hold an investigation into the reported attacks on former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko in prison. Yanukovych said he had ordered the country's prosecutor to investigate and hoped that clear answers would soon emerge.
On Wednesday 25 April, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton and EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle called for an investigation into the prison attacks. Ashton said that Ukraine must carry out an immediate and unbiased investigation into the complaints of torture and other cruel, inhumane and degrading attacks that led Tymoshenko to begin a hunger strike on Tuesday 24 April in protest at the political oppression and violence against her.
On Friday, German doctors invited to treat Tymoshenko in the Ukraine called on the country's president to allow her to be treated in Germany, pointing out that time was of the essence, given her fragile state.
There were several calls in the EU on Friday 27 April for the Euro 2012 football organisers in the Ukraine and Poland to examine the case of Ukranian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, but UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) stood by the decision to hold the championship in Kiev. Viviane Reding explained that she had rejected an invitation from UEFA president Michel Platini to attend the opening ceremony in June. She called on Platini to take account of the tragic situation facing Tymoshenko, who has been in prison since August 2011 and is on hunger strike. Reding said that people must not ignore human rights, even for a football championship, and called for a fair trial for the former Ukrainian prime minister. Selective, partial, justice must not be put up with, added the commissioner, hoping that Platini would use the great event of UEFA's Euro 2012 to relay the values to which they both subscribed. Platini defended the choice of Ukraine for the Euro 2012 championship, despite criticisms of the lack of democracy in the country, telling German newspaper Die Welt that not holding the European championships in countries like Ukraine because things are not as stable as in European democracies was not the right answer.
The Greens/EFA Group at the European Parliament calls on UEFA to take a firm line. In an open letter to Platini, Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Rebecca Harms say it is impossible to attend matches in Charkiv Kiev or Kwiw football stadiums while Tymoshenko is in prison. The two MEPs say that an official statement by UEFA and national football federations about the unacceptable political climate in Ukraine at the moment must be made before the official opening of EURO 2012, and it must be made clear that football and sports organisations will not tolerate attacks on human rights or arbitrary justice.
The president of Germany, Joachim Gauck, has turned down an official invitation to a meeting in Ukraine of leaders of central European countries, a meeting scheduled to take place in Yalta next month. (CG/LC/transl.fl)