Apr 16, 2015

VIDEO: Court Statement of jailed Ukrainian journalist Kotsaba

[…] the problems started with the so-called people’s authorities. Why were the Heaven Hundred guys [the victims of the Maidan massacre] shot? Why were Debatlsevo and Volodovakha ruined? And Ilovaisk? Was it for the big, millionaire bribes taken from the Interregional Expert Department? […] Who are these people in fake uniforms? The so-called volunteers? What do they do? What church is this, ruled by a “patriarch”, that collects money for snipers’ night sights? […]

Story background:

KIEV – Ukraine’s security service arrested a journalist on treason charges Sunday after he posted a video online urging people to dodge the country’s new military draft, his wife and officials said.

Ruslan Kotsaba — a television journalist from the western region of Ivano-Frankivsk — was ordered held in custody for 60 days pending investigations, his wife, Uliana, wrote on Facebook.

A senior official at Ukraine’s SBU security agency, Markian Lubkivskyi, wrote online that Kotsaba was detained on suspicion of treason, an accusation that carries a possible 15-year jail sentence.

Kotsaba published a video on YouTube last month denouncing a new round of military call-ups by Kiev to boost its forces fighting pro-Russian rebels in the east.

“I would prefer to go to prison than to participate in this fratricidal war,” Kotsaba said in the footage, which was viewed more than 300,000 times.

“I refuse to be drafted and call on everyone who is called up to refuse,” he said. […]

Link to original source in Japan Times