Reporters Demand Justice for the Beating of Reutsky
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Journalists have appealed to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, reminding him that the law enforcement officers who beat Konstantin Reutsky have still not been punished. Among their demands is for Anton Gerashchenko to be stripped of his post as Adviser to the Interior Minister.
The appeal states that a month has passed since the night of Konstantin Reutsky beating by former Berkut members in front of Anastasia Stanko, a Hromadske TV reporter, in Pesochin, near Kharkiv. But, the police involved have not only avoided punishment, Gerashchenko proposes to reward them for the detention of an armed vehicle. Also, according to the reporters, he was photographed with these police officers and called the journalists who reported the crime “provocateurs”.
Anastasia Stanko is appealing with the following demands:
– Immediately fire officers Riyako, Kostyuk and Goncharenko and bring them to justice for abuse of power during the attack on Konstantin Reutsky;
– Officially and publicly revoke People’s Deputy Anton Gerashchenko’s title as Adviser to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine;
– To identify and bring to justice those who prepared and disseminated publications with false data about Hromadske TV reporters on the official Interior Ministry website.
“I urge others to join in the defense of justice. Maidan did not fight to keep protecting criminals who wear police epaulets. We must do this because while, as they say among themselves, they ‘got away with Maidan,’ then at least here they can get what they deserve,” says Stanko.
Stanko says that on January 29th, at the traffic patrol post in Pesochin near Kharkiv, traffic police beat Konstantin Reutsky, Head of the Board of the “Postup” Human Rights Center. Traffic police, according to her, stopped the journalists who were traveling from the ATO, checked their documents and wanted to inspect the car. After Reutsky remarked that they were not checked like that even in the area of ATO, the officers wanted to examine their personal belongings as well. When Reutsky pulled the camera out of his bag, the traffic police tried to take it away and twisted Reutsky’s arms.
According to informator.lg.ua, where Reutsky is a journalist, Gerashchenko claimed that the law enforcement officers did not beat him and only twisted his arms when he was taking out a camera because they were afraid that he would pull out a gun. At the same time, Reutsky refers to photos from the scene, and the conclusions of the medical examiner and doctors who diagnosed him with a closed head injury.
