Shabunin: the detention of a family member of AntAC lawyer is not related to our watchdogging

Yesterday’s detention of the AntAC chief lawyer’s husband is not related with AntAC professional activity, nor with AntAC lawyer’s activity as attorney.

“The video of the incident, released today by the Police, clearly shows that the policemen acted in accordance with the instructions”. Such a statement was made by Vitaliy Shabunin, AntAC Chairman of the Board, after the police released a video and pictures of yesterday’s incident.

Shabunin post

“Our colleague’s husband received a report on the administrative violation, the case is transferred to the court”, added Shabunin. AntAC yesterday’s decision to immediately inform public about the case was caused by the​ following​ ​reasons:

  • Recently intensified attacks over AntAC. Criminal case against AntAC Head of Board Vitaliy Shabunin for punching a provocateur ​Filimonenko ​was sent to court​ and the first hearing is scheduled for January 30​, 2018. It took only a week for the first hearing to be scheduled comparing to months for NABU cases. In the meantime, the case on falsification of medical examination results, on the grounds of which the case against Shabunin was made up, completely stalled​. No progress has been also made with the case against Filimonenko who, being safe and sound, sprayed in Shabunin’s and TV journalists’ faces just some time after having been punched.

In addition, t​ax administration’s criminal case against AntAC questioning NGO’s non-profit status was recently ​revived and ​sent to ​the ​regional court after Kyiv court refused to give the permission to the prosecution on tax​ check. ​We see no reasonable grounds for such a choice of the court, since the NGO is registered in Kyiv, and our activity is held here.

Moreover, over the last year we have witnessed a number of provocations targeting specifically AntAC team family members (Vitaliy Shabunin’s mother-in-law, Oleksandra Ustinova’s partner etc)

  • in addition, on the day of the incident AntAC lost a lawsuit against the Security Service of Ukraine regarding the classification of the e-declarations of their management, where Olena Shcherban acted as an attorney. That evening she was working on a critical analytical article on the topic;
  • there were certain issues that preliminary pointed on possible political grounds of the case, specifically police officers refusing to explain to Olena Shcherban the reasons for detention of her husband and inform her about which police department he was taken to.

To conclude – ​this is a private case of our chief lawyer Olena Shcherban, not related to her professional activity. As it is seen on the published videos, police officers acted in accordance to their instructions.

We are sorry for having overreacted, which is caused by the constant pressure AntAC and its team members are facing.

We thank everyone for the attention to this case and immediate support.

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