11:59 25.07.2013

FEMEN says their male activist brutally beaten up by security services

2 min read
FEMEN says their male activist brutally beaten up by security services

An activist from the women's movement FEMEN, Viktor Sviatsky, was severely beaten in the evening of July 24 near the organization's office in Kyiv, the movement has said in a statement.

According to the movement's press release, Sviatsky was beaten between 2200 and 2300 in Mykhailivska Streets, where the Kyiv office of FEMEN is located. The movement said it suspects that this was done by special services, the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) or Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB).

The organization says that those who attacked Sviatsky were threatening similar violence against the movement's female activists should they interfere with the upcoming events dated to the 1,025th anniversary of the Christianization of the Kyivan Rus, which will involve leaders of former Soviet countries.

"With a crushed face, suspected fracture of the lower jaw, knocked out teeth and a great loss of blood, Viktor was brought by ambulance to an emergency hospital… None of his possessions was stolen, and the style of beating was not like that of street muggers," the report says.

The organization also said that in recent days before the upcoming visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill to Ukraine on the occasion of the anniversary of Rus Christianization, "the security services continuously harassed male workers of the FEMEN movement, who are unknown to the general public." In particular, they threatened the designer and the programmer of the movement.

In addition, FEMEN leader Hanna Hutsol and activist Oleksandra Shevchenko said they have noticed being followed several times.

Interfax-Ukraine hasn't got an official confirmation of this information yet.

As reported, last year during Patriarch Kirill's visit to Ukraine, a half-naked FEMEN activist, Yana Zhdanova, approached the patriarch while he was talking to journalists at Boryspil Airport and shouted "Go Away!" before security apprehended her. Zhdanova was sentenced to fifteen days of administrative arrest.

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