Pressemitteilung der Organization "Welt ohne Nazismus" über die Parlamentswahlen in der Ukraine
As a result of the regular parliamentary elections, held on October 28, 2012, for the the first time of the post-Soviet history a neo-Nazi party "Freedom" ("Свобода"), professing openly xenophobic, especially anti-Russian and anti-Semitic views, passed into the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. Thus, Ukraine has expanded a quite impressive list of European countries where radical nationalist forces had passed into the central legislature.
Realizing that the election results reflect the preferences of the Ukrainian voters, the International Human Rights Movement "World without Nazism" expresses its concern about the increase of ultra-nationalist sentiments in the Ukrainian society, as well as the prospects of the Ukrainian democracy as the main opposition parties, who call themselves the democratic parties such as the United opposition block "Motherland" ("Батькивщина") and the Party “Punch” (УДАР) - UDAR ("Ukrainian Democratic Alliance for Reforms") had already declared their readiness to cooperate with neo- Nazis in parliament.
These parties are well aware that "Freedom" stands for "presence in Ukraine of the exclusively Ukrainian culture", the complete Ukrainization, return of the column "nationality" in the passport, lustration, rehabilitation "of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army", that is responsible for the destruction of Polish, Ukrainian and Jewish civilians during the Second World War, etc. The main slogan which this party used to go into the parliament, is the abolition of the law "On the Principles of State Language Policy", which, according to the general requirements of the Council of Europe, implies the provision of the status of regional languages for languages of national miniroties in the places of their residence.
Party leader Oleg Tyagnibok recently demanded to "clean Ukraine from Jews and Russians", and encouraged to take as an example the Ukrainian collaborators who cooperated with the Nazis during the war.
We believe that no political considerations, especially supported by the slogans that proclaim necessity of democracy in the country, can justify the outright collaboration with neo- Nazis. We urge the Ukrainian opposition to refuse to collaborate with this party in parliament.
We appeal to the parliaments of other countries of the world to boycott the representatives of this party elected to the Verkhovna Rada at the inter-parliamentary level.
We call upon international organizations, one of whose main objectives is the protection of human rights - the Council of Europe, the OSCE, the UN Human Rights Council, etc. – to begin monitoring of the parliamentary and non-parliamentary activities of the party "Freedom" in Ukraine.
Passage of neo-Nazis to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, and especially their possible political alliance with the united opposition, is a challenge not only to the multinational people of Ukraine, but also to the entire international community.
Therefore, the International Human Rights Movement "World without Nazism" expresses its readiness to use all its political resources and the available legal remedies to counteract the rise of neo-Nazi moods in Ukraine. In this fight, we are open to an alliance with all the forces that share anti-Nazi beliefs and goals.
Only together we can resist the new brown plague in Europe!
Boris Spiegel,
President of the International human rights movement "World without Nazism".
October 29, 2012