On the morning of Jan. 27, a group of law enforcement investigators knocked on the door of Edward Peters’ tire warehouse in Kyiv’s Solomiansky district. They showed Peters a search warrant, and confiscated the office’s records and the business telephone.
Over the course of the next five hours, the
investigators questioned Peters and his partner, Edward Makarov, and took
inventory of the 9,781 tires in the warehouse. Then, the investigators locked
and sealed the warehouse and took Peters and Makarov to the police station for
another two hours of questioning. Тheir lawyer was not present.
Requests by the Kyiv Post for information
from police and prosecutors were not immediately answered.
Peters was charged with supporting
terrorist activity for allegedly selling tires to activists in the EuroMaidan
movement, who have burned tires on Hrushevskoho Street to create a smokescreen
between protesters and riot police.
However, Peters, a Dutch immigrant, says
his tires were never burned on Hrushevskoho Street and that he has never sold
tires to activists. When he appeared in court on Jan. 29, the prosecutor said he
could provide no evidence linking Peters’ business to the tire fires on EuroMaidan.
Still, the judge ruled that the investigation should continue, and placed a
moratorium on Peters’ tire sales.
Though the tires remain in his warehouse
Peters says he “cannot operate at all” and has had no income since the judge’s
ruling. As a result, Peters and Makarov have been forced to lay off their
entire staff.
Protesters have occupied Independence
Square and several surrounding streets in central Kyiv since Nov. 21, when
President Victor Yanukovych put an association agreement with the European
Union on hold and later sealed a bailout with Russia.
Over the past nine weeks, riot police and
special forces have tried several times to drive people from the square
violently, but these attempts have only emboldened protesters and increased the
number of people standing on the Maidan.
Courts have increasingly targeted
individuals and businesses thought to be associated with the EuroMaidan
movement as a form of intimidation. Dozens
of activists sit in jail in Kyiv and throughout Ukraine, where protests have
spread in recent weeks. EuroMaidan supporters accuse government prosecutors of
levying false accusations against activists.
“If they take the law into their own hands,
what can we do?” said Peters, contemplating the future of his own business, and
of the EuroMaidan movement. The moratorium on Peters’ sales is not unique:
Peters says he knows of “at least 11 cases of tire businesses that will be
closed” while the government investigates their activities.
Peters appealed the judge’s ruling, and
appeared in court on Feb. 3. However, the
court neglected to hire a translator for Peters, whose native language is
Dutch, and the trial was postponed until Feb. 18.
By then, the warehouse will have been
closed for nearly three weeks. Without any business, Peters says he is having
difficulty supporting his wife and children: “I need to feed my family…I don’t
go to the center [to protest]…I don’t complain. I’m just trying to do my job.”
Kyiv
Post contributor Isaac Webb can be reached at [email protected] and @isaacdwebb
