CP of Ukraine condemns church raiding by neo-Nazis

The CC of the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU) blames government of using neo-Nazis to suppress dissidents.

ICP, 6 April 2018

A statement issued by the Department of International Relations of the KPU Central Committee mentioned the last raiding of a church by neo-Nazi groups and condemned the government of condoning such violations of the freedom of expression and religion in Ukraine. The government established after the armed coup of 2014 is known to be backing such groups.

Since 2014, the government has been enacting several ‘decommunization’ laws while turning a bling to pro-fascist right-nationalist forces which are violating the Constitution by overriding the rights and freedoms of citizens. It was underlined in the statement that the ruling regime persecutes all dissidents and interferes in the activities of unwanted parties, public organizations, religious associations, representatives of traditional confessions, atheists. 

An act of "church raiding" had recently occurred on April 2 in the Rivne region, where the militants of the punitive neo-Nazi battalions Aidar and Azov had broken into a temple, thrown out the parishioners and priests of the canonical Orthodox Church by force of arms and under the ‘total inaction of the police’ as it was stated by the KPU. 

The Communist Party of Ukraine expressed that the ruling regime aims to establish ‘a monopoly in the church sphere’ by such actions on behalf of neo-Nazi organizations. The statement identified these organizations as ‘those that swore allegiance to Hitler during the Great Patriotic War and in the years of independent Ukraine - oligarchic-Nazi criminals who unleashed the Civil War in the Donbass’. 

The KPU declared that such actions violating human rights and persecuting dissidents are ‘an integral part of the policy of the ruling regime’. According to the statement of the KPU, the regime has so far failed to comply with any recommendations of the Venice Commission to bring into line with the Constitution of Ukraine, including the openly discriminatory laws on "decommunization", on education and other legislative acts that grossly violate human rights and freedoms according to the norms of international law.