Maksym is an activist of Direct Action, a Ukrainian syndicalist students' movement with branches in Lviv, Kryvyi Rih and Kyiv.
A year ago, police searched his apartment and took away his and his roommates' phones and laptops. Last week, they invited him to "arrange the return" of the equipment. Instead, they handed him over a document, "reasonable suspicion" of promoting communist symbols.
The document only lists dates of Facebook posts that supposedly contain criminalized symbols. Maksym insists that they are educational materials that he shared while studying.
"These were mostly articles by modern Western thinkers, philosophy-adjacent materials, my research. There also were publications by a British leftist journal that supports Ukraine", - Maksym.
"They were about Marxism, works by Marx, criticism of Marx and analysis of modern Russian ideology. These were not materials about USSR or Soviet political figures", - Olha Veretilnyk, Maksym's lawyer.
Shumakov states that this criminal harassment began after Direct Action organized campaigns for students' rights. The campaigns cover conditions in dorms, sexual harassment by professors and administration, and - this month - public transit price hikes (€72 per month in Kyiv, given €193/month minimum salary and €24/month student scholarship that only a few receive). Activists of the students' union in different cities report increased attention from law enforcement and secret services.
2 Comments
green_red_black@slrpnk.net · 7 pts · 20d
Finally a real story of the Unkranian State Suppressing Leftists.
I mean this is terrible and Solidarity with the Students, but man I am used to the stories being some Tankie BS about Ukraine removing Soviet Symbols and such.
nykula@piefed.social · 4 pts · 20d
Yes. I actually delayed joining the Threadiverse until a viable alternative to the Lemmy ecosystem emerged. The communities moderated by Lemmy developers seem to rejoice every time anything bad happens to Ukrainians.
A couple years ago I would've posted about a Lviv vegan activist assaulted by boneheads, standing to fight alone against multiple attackers. The police tried to accuse him of terrorism. The Black Flag collective (Чорний Стяг) stood in solidarity with him and they backed off. The police did nothing against the boneheads though, because they never do. In fact, this is how the state "solves the problem" of leftists and "annoying" environmental and LGBTQIA+ activists here - quietly - boneheads have free pass to do anything they want, no investigation no charges. Most people who posed real street opposition to boneheads are in the military now, including the vegan activist; that's great from the ideological standpoint but a serious tactical mistake IMO.