Harassment on the rise ahead of elections

There has been a surge in harassment in Ukraine in September and the first part of October (October 1-12), much of it related to the elections. This according to the results of monitoring conducted by the Center for Society Research with support from the International Renaissance Foundation’s Civil Society and Good Governance Program.

The number of negative reactions to protests in this period remained nearly unchanged. In August 45 were reported, in September (according to preliminary data) – 52, and in the first twelve days of October – 16.  

But the number of cases of harassment not involving specific protests but interference in the sociopolitical activities of the opposition more than doubled in September. In August there were 48 reported cases, and in September – 111. In the first twelve days of October there had already been 51 reported cases.  

70% of harassment in August, 77% in September and 65% in October was directly related to the elections.

The most common form of harassment is light (18%). In 17% of cases participants of sociopolitical activities were arrested or detained; in 13% of cases they were beaten. Common victims of beatings are journalists, and in October – ordinary campaign workers working on the streets for a particular party.

Nearly 40% of cases of harassment and interference were carried out by law enforcement. Another quarter more were the handiwork of unidentified individuals or groups.

46% of harassment cases were aimed at political parties of particular politicians. In 21% of cases the victims of harassment were journalists or media.
 
The monitoring of protests, harassment and actions involves the collection of information about all (regardless of issue and size) such incidents in response to protests nationwide based on monitoring of approximately 200 national, oblast and activist web media.   

Contacts:
Center for Society Research
Volodymyr Ishchenko
+38 097 396 44 99

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The goal of the Civil Society and Good Governance Program is to promote development of a system to protect the rights of public and municipal service consumers and to support NGO policy capacity building.