The responsibility for Svoboda party Andriy Illienko's beating lies on Minister of the Interior Vitaliy Zakharchenko, the Batkivshchyna Party stated.
The opposition does not expect Zakharchenko to resign, though they believe he is responsible for many crimes.
“But we encourage honest militia officers not to be dissolved in this environment of imposed crime and injustice, and to fulfill their duty and find the bandits,” they said.
Illienko’s beating yet again exposed the lack of a law enforcement system in Ukraine, the opposition believes.
“When an MP is beaten next to a district police department, it might mean that either the bandits disregard law enforcement officials or that the bandits and the militia are all the same,” the statement said.
This incident is indicative of the government’s repressive activities in the eyes of the Batkivshchyna Party.
“The government is trying to ramp up the juggernaut of harassment and intimidation of politicians, civil activists and ordinary people who have risen up against crime and, together with the whole country come out to Maidan,” the statement said.
At the same time, the authors of the statement called on the international community to give its assessment of today’s beating of the opposition deputy.
Arseniy Yatseniuk, the Batkivshchyna faction head, in particular voiced his indignation.
“Zaharchenko has to be one of the first persons in the list of Ukrainian officials who fall under the personal visa and financial sanctions by the U.S. and the EU,” he wrote in his Facebook.
“A person who is the Minister of Interior and who hires thugs to beat the opposition at the same time cannot set his foot on European land. Isn’t it evident that the attack on MP Andriy Illienko and his lawyer Sydir Kizin took place right on the doorstep of the local police precinct from an obvious tip?” he argued.
Original in Ukrainian on the Ukrainska Pravda website:
