Dear Greenpeace team,
my friends and me, citizens of Kharkov in Ukraine are desperate and need to get as much attention as possible on what is happening in our city. The local government has approved a lisentious plan for a new speedway through Gorky Park, a big, old and very well known central park, and one of the few remaining green spaces of the city. (The park prospected to be similar to the Bois de Boulogne was found in 1893. The seedlings were put by hands of Kharkovites especially students. And then it was revivified the same way after disengagement of Kharkov in 1943. Nowadays the park is not only a recreation zone for city-dwellers but also a habitat for squirrels and many species of birds straight in the center of a big city. Now their nests are destroyed.
Expert analysis clearly show that the route through the park is absolutely wasteful - there are altenrative routes which make far more sense and wouldn't involve cutting trees and reducing the park area by a third. It is obvious that the government is abusing its position, and there exist lucid explanations showing that the real intention is not improving the traffic infrastructure, but immoral enrichment. According to published documents private houses, hotels, stores, restaurants and so on will be built there instead of nearly quarter of the park despite the fact that it is located on municipal land.
On the 20th of May the cutting works in the park started. Right the same day people in Kharkiv started a campaign to save the park. Multiple meetings and pickets took place in front of local government offices. Activists occupied the park area which was about to be cleared and succeeded in putting back the construction works and getting attention of the local media. Everyday there was a new attempt to chase the activists away, but they stood their ground. Some people got to hospital being hurt by men dressed in workers' uniform and others calling themselves "municipal police". Before this incident nobody have heard about such police in Kharkov. And those people refused to show any documents even to the journalists.
However, on the 2nd of June at 4 a. m. at twilight there was a brutal attacк on the activists' camp by defined unknown forces. People in black started cutting the trees with a petrol-powered saws, ignoring the fact that activists had climbed them. Some of them threatened activists with saws. Activists were beaten hardly and thrown on the ground. Several people were seriously injured. The real police in uniform and equipped with guns was watching the scene inactively and totally ignored requests for help, but later on started arresting the activists instead of the aggressors.
Many people
who were present there made video although the aggressors tried to stop them.
Later every file was gathered and published online, some collections were made
for TV and blogs. Here is a video with English comments showing the brutal
attack on the activists' camp at about 4 o'clock in the morning: http://www.youtube.com/v/YCfOS5d9RC0&co
Here you
find my blog entries in Russian with links to other video and photo footage and
further information sources: http://poor-sleepyhead.livejournal.com/
And here is
our community also in Russian where we share actual links and scans of
documents, fotos from public actions, posters for print and and so on: http://community.livejournal.com/gorkiy
Now we are trying to take truth to court. Also we referred to the state government for justice. We demand a moratorium on cutting trees in park zones all over the country.
A TV coverage of a local channel showing the attacks has been intermitted. Most of local journalists are frightened, they complain about being intimidated by the government forces.
Please, help to focus public attention on this issue!
Hopefully,
...
Ukraine