KYIV – The Ukrainian-Italian holding company Dendi has sent letters to 50 foreign diplomatic and financial representations asking them to closely monitor the government's alleged campaign to undermine the company. “We would like to draw your attention to blatant lawlessness engineered by the higher echelons of power in this country with respect to our company,” the letter said. Copies of the letter, dated Aug. 12, were sent to embassies and the offices of international financial institutions. Dendi Vice President Dmytro Chekalkin said the alleged government harassment of his company had been brought on by a series of articles critical of Interior Minister Yuri Kravchenko in the Kievskie Vedomosti newspaper. Dendi, which runs a network of shops, currency exchange points, and restaurants, owns a controlling stake in the newspaper.
Chekalin said the alleged government campaign of harassment against Dendi merited international notice. “The government will get a warning from foreign diplomatic representations that dealing with the press in the kind of manner they do is deadly for the country,” he said. He said that another letter describing Dendi's plight had been sent to Parliament Speaker Oleksandr Moroz. Chekalkin said the government pressure being applied against his company has not been relaxed since the beginning of August. Hardly a day passes without more checks of the corporation's activity being made, and such intrusions are not likely to finish in the near future, he said.
“The person who came to check one of our offices yesterday said he had been given authorization to check the company until the end of this year,” he said.
According to Chekalin, Dendi's appeals to the Kyiv prosecutor's office have had no effect. He said a letter of response from the office said that “Ukrainian law … does not regulate the number and frequency of checks.” `He said Dendi's business is suffering from the endless checks, which often result in the confiscation of important official documents on the basis of petty charges. He said 12 of Dendi's currency exchange points in the center of Kyiv had been closed in early August, and their trade licenses confiscated “because it was difficult to read stamps on them.”
