Italians and Ukrainians thowing their corrupt politicians into Dust Bins
- 8 years ago
It’s a bad time to be a Ukrainian politician.
The war in the east refuses to end, despite a “ceasefire”. Winter is approaching, and with it all the worries of another “gas-war” with Russia. And with parliamentary elections just weeks away, pre-revolutionary MPs are getting nervous about hanging on to their jobs.
To make things worse, there is a growing chance of ending up in a wheelie bin.
Since early September up to a dozen MPs, city councillors and other officials accused of wrong doing have been hauled from their offices by masked gangs in what has become know as the “Trash Bucket Challenge.”
The perpetrators - often members of the radical right-wing group Right Sector - say the public humiliations are to punish the corruption and criminality that characterised the previous regime
But critics warn the attacks are just one step away from mob justice and public lynchings.
“The main thing in our country now is that the criminals are all still there,” said Yury Mindiuk, the head of Right Sector’s central executive. “No one wants to implement the ideas of Maidan.”
Right Sector emerged as an alliance of far right groups during the revolution, and earned a fearsome reputation as one of the most militant elements in the street fighting that led to Mr Yanukovych’s overthrow. Since then some members of the group have fought in the war in eastern Ukraine, but they have struggled to find political relevance in post-revolutionary politics.
It was the group’s Odessa branch that came up with the idea last month, when they dumped Oleg Rudenko, a city insurance official accused of taking a £28,000 bribe, in a trash can.
The stunt hit a chord. Soon Right Sector groups across the country were doing the same thing to anyone from MPs with links to the previous regime through to local municipal officials accused of taking bribes.
On September 16 a mob grabbed and “binned” Vitaly Zhuravsky, an MP formerly of Mr Yanukovych’s now defunct Party of the Regions. On September 25 it was the turn of Viktor Pylypyshyn, another Party of the Regions man.
In both cases activists seemed most upset about their support for repressive package of laws Mr Yanukovych rushed through parliament in a doomed bid to crush the anti-government protests in December.
But it is not just MPs linked to Mr Yanukoych who are in danger. In the most recent incident on Right Sector’s website features a doctor from a municipal hospital in the small town of Terebolvya. The group says he was convicted of bribery three months ago.
Others have taken up the “trash bucket challenge.” Oleh Lyashko, a controversial MP who has earned notoriety for his DIY “arrests” of suspected separatists in the east of the country, frog-marched a municipal official in Kirovograd into a wheelie bin for “lying.”
The tensions underlying the practice go back to last winter’s revolution.
When protesters swept over the 18ft high walls of Viktor Yanukovych’s out of town residence after he fled on February 22, they found an estate half the size of Monaco replete with private zoo, classic car collection, and a now infamous mock-galleon restaurant moored on the river. The clubs at the private golf course were embossed with Mr Yanukovych’s initials.
The war in the east refuses to end, despite a “ceasefire”. Winter is approaching, and with it all the worries of another “gas-war” with Russia. And with parliamentary elections just weeks away, pre-revolutionary MPs are getting nervous about hanging on to their jobs.
To make things worse, there is a growing chance of ending up in a wheelie bin.
Since early September up to a dozen MPs, city councillors and other officials accused of wrong doing have been hauled from their offices by masked gangs in what has become know as the “Trash Bucket Challenge.”
The perpetrators - often members of the radical right-wing group Right Sector - say the public humiliations are to punish the corruption and criminality that characterised the previous regime
But critics warn the attacks are just one step away from mob justice and public lynchings.
“The main thing in our country now is that the criminals are all still there,” said Yury Mindiuk, the head of Right Sector’s central executive. “No one wants to implement the ideas of Maidan.”
Right Sector emerged as an alliance of far right groups during the revolution, and earned a fearsome reputation as one of the most militant elements in the street fighting that led to Mr Yanukovych’s overthrow. Since then some members of the group have fought in the war in eastern Ukraine, but they have struggled to find political relevance in post-revolutionary politics.
It was the group’s Odessa branch that came up with the idea last month, when they dumped Oleg Rudenko, a city insurance official accused of taking a £28,000 bribe, in a trash can.
The stunt hit a chord. Soon Right Sector groups across the country were doing the same thing to anyone from MPs with links to the previous regime through to local municipal officials accused of taking bribes.
On September 16 a mob grabbed and “binned” Vitaly Zhuravsky, an MP formerly of Mr Yanukovych’s now defunct Party of the Regions. On September 25 it was the turn of Viktor Pylypyshyn, another Party of the Regions man.
In both cases activists seemed most upset about their support for repressive package of laws Mr Yanukovych rushed through parliament in a doomed bid to crush the anti-government protests in December.
But it is not just MPs linked to Mr Yanukoych who are in danger. In the most recent incident on Right Sector’s website features a doctor from a municipal hospital in the small town of Terebolvya. The group says he was convicted of bribery three months ago.
Others have taken up the “trash bucket challenge.” Oleh Lyashko, a controversial MP who has earned notoriety for his DIY “arrests” of suspected separatists in the east of the country, frog-marched a municipal official in Kirovograd into a wheelie bin for “lying.”
The tensions underlying the practice go back to last winter’s revolution.
When protesters swept over the 18ft high walls of Viktor Yanukovych’s out of town residence after he fled on February 22, they found an estate half the size of Monaco replete with private zoo, classic car collection, and a now infamous mock-galleon restaurant moored on the river. The clubs at the private golf course were embossed with Mr Yanukovych’s initials.