FSB has arrested and beaten Ukrainian activist Igor Movenko in Crimea

This morning in occupied Sevastopol FSB officers came to place of work of Ukrainian Igor Movenko and detained him. They also seized his desktop computer.

His wife, Valentina Movenko, informed the Crimean Human Rights Group about the detainment.

“A few hours later, at about 12:00 am officers brought handcuffed Igor to our home. I was at home, but they opened the door with the key that they took from Igor. By this time I already knew that Igor was taken by FSB, since his coworkers told me about this on phone call. They read us a court order to conduct the search, but they refused to give me a copy of the order”, – said Valentina Movenko.

She informed the CHRG, that she was forbidden to talk with her husband, but Igor managed to tell her that he was beaten and threatened to be detained if he did not confess extremism.

According to Valentina, that officers have seized a laptop, hard drives of the home computer, SIM card and starter package during the search. They also took Igor’s mobile phone. The search was conducted by 7 people. There were two witnesses in the apartment during the search.

FSB officers have filmed the search in Movenko’s apartment.

“They were very interested by the Ukrainian flags that we have in our apartment”, – said Valentina.

“FSB officers told me that Igor will be transported to the Sevastopol FSB department (“FSSD of the Russian Federation in the republic of Crimea and Sevastopol city” – ed.) and if he does not plead guilty then court will chose a preventive measure of detention. And if he does plead guilty then there will be a written pledge not to leave town or house arrest”, – said Movenko.

Olga Skrypnyk, coordinator of the Crimean Human Rights Group, informed the Human Rights Information Centre that Igor Movenko for several months tried to defend his rights after he was injured for expressing his opinions. Because he posted stickers with Ukrainian symbolics on his bicycle.

“In September Igor was beaten in front of the witnesses in broad daylight because of the stickers. But they refused to open criminal case after the beating. Yet, Igor as a victim was fined for “spreading Nazi symbolism”. Ukrainian has repeatedly tried to ensure that the criminal case will be opened because of the beating. He has video of the beating and medical confirmation of his face injuries. But still no one was held accountable. And now Russian FSB decided to intervene. Now we can certainly talk about the persecution of another Ukrainian in Crimea for his open pro-Ukrainian position. Today he was detained by FSB and beaten while they drove him from his work place to the apartment in order to conduct a search. Now he is forced to testify and confess extremism”, – said Skrypnyk.

As a reminder, recently FSB started to crudely falsify the criminal case against Volodymyr Balukh, another Ukrainian activist. He used to hang Ukrainian flag on his house for two years.