There’ve been some strange goings on lately in Ukraine, as former President Petro Poroshenko has been repeatedly called in for court hearings on a variety of criminal charges. Among them were such ludicrous charges as “treason” and “inciting religious enmity.” (We refer you to the commentary on the right.) Many observers see these cases as political persecution by the administration of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of his predecessor and opponent in the most recent presidential election.
On June 14, a group of civic leaders, including former Soviet political prisoners, released an open letter to President Zelenskyy (see page 3) to express their outrage over the actions of the State Bureau of Investigations and the Prosecutor General’s Office, which are bringing back “arbitrariness, selective justice and political persecution.”