Moscow, February 18th, 2014.
Appeal to peoples and governments of the world
On the 18th of February, 2014, Viktor Yanukovich ordered the police to shoot at a peaceful popular demonstration, marching toward the Verkhovna Rada demanding the introduction a bill restoring the 2004 Constitution. At least eighteen people have already been killed as a result of unwarranted use of firearms by the special police force Berkut. Hundreds of people have been injured and the police are not granting them access to medical help. Over the past months many Maidan activists have been kidnapped and subsequently humiliated, tortured or murdered. Right now, special police forces and security services are storming the square that is the center of the Ukrainian citizens’ peaceful protest.
The Committee in Solidarity with Maidan appeals to the international community to:
- take all possible measures to immediately end the bloodshed in Kyiv;
- condemn the crimes against humanity committed by the Yanukovich regime;
- establish an international tribunal to investigate the offences of Yanukovich’s criminal regime against the Ukrainian people;
- freeze the accounts of Yanukovich and his accomplices in banks all over the world;
- initiate criminal cases against Yanukovich and his henchmen and include their names on Interpol lists.
The Commitee in Solidarity with Maidan calls for an investigation into the actions of Russian officials and servicemen, including Russia’s top officials, who have helped plan and commit crimes against the Ukrainian people and who have urged the Ukrainian authorities to violently suppress the democratic movement in Ukraine. The Commitee in Solidarity with Maidan calls for economic and political sanctions against these Russian officials and servicemen.
The killing of Ukrainian civilians needs to end immediately.
Criminals guilty of crimes against the Ukrainian people, whatever positions they may hold, must to be duly punished.
Members of the Commitee in Solidarity with Maidan:
Mikhail Anshakov
Dmitry Barma
Andrei Illarionov
Valeriy Otstavnykh
Andrei Piontkovsky
Vladimir Rizda
Pavel Shelkov