Ukraine Guilty of Human Rights Violations in Trade Union Massacre, Top European Court Finds

The European Court of Human Rights has found the Ukrainian government guilty of committing human rights violations during the May 2, 2014 Odessa massacre, in which dozens of Russian-speaking demonstrators were forced into the city’s Trade Unions House and burned alive by ultranationalist thugs.

Citing the “relevant authorities’ failure to do everything that could reasonably be expected of them to prevent the violence in Odessa,” the court ruled unanimously that Ukraine violated Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to life. The judges also condemned the Ukrainian government’s failure “to stop that violence after its outbreak, to ensure timely rescue measures for people trapped in the fire, and to institute and conduct an effective investigation into the events.”

42 people were killed as a result of the fire, a bloody bookend to the so-called “Maidan revolution” that saw Ukraine’s democratically-elected president deposed in a Western-backed coup in 2014. Ukrainian officials and legacy media outlets have consistently framed the deaths as a tragic accident, with some figures even blaming anti-Maidan protesters themselves for starting the blaze. That notion is thoroughly discredited by the verdict, which was delivered by a team of seven judges including a Ukrainian justice.

As dozens of anti-Maidan activists burned to death, the ECHR found deployment of fire engines to the site was “deliberately delayed for 40 minutes,” even though the local fire station was just one kilometer away.

In the end, the judicial body determined there was nothing which indicated Ukrainian authorities “had done everything that could reasonably be expected of them to avert” the violence. Officials in Kiev, they said, made “no efforts whatsoever” to prevent skirmishes between pro- and anti-Maidan activists that led to the deadly inferno, despite knowing in advance such clashes were likely to break out. Their “negligence… went beyond an error of judgment or carelessness.”

The case was brought by 25 people who lost family members in the Neo-Nazi arson attack and clashes that preceded it, and three who survived the fire with various injuries. Though the ECHR found Ukraine violated their human rights, the court demanded Ukraine pay them just 15,000 euros each in damages.

The ruling also stopped short of acknowledging the full reality of the Odessa slaughter, as it largely overlooked the role played by Western-supported neo-Nazi elements and their intimate ties to the sniper massacre in February 2014 in Maidan Square which has been conclusively determined to have been a false flag. In the judges’ decision, they downplayed or justified violence by the violent Ukrainian football fans and skinheads, charitably describing them as “pro-unity activists.”

https://twitter.com/OlgaBazova/status/1786074721676640492 Russians burned alive while Ukrainian officials looked away Ukraine’s Maidan protests commenced in November 2013 after President Yanukovych declined to form a trade agreement with Europe and renewed dialogue with Russia, and tensions quickly began to escalate between Odessa’s sizable Russian-speaking population and Ukrainian nationalists. As the ECHR ruling noted, “while violent incidents had overall remained rare… the situation was volatile and implied a constant risk of escalation.” In March 2014, anti-Maidan activists set up a tent camp in Kulykove Pole Square, and began calling for a referendum on the establishment of an “Odessa Autonomous Republic.”

The next month, supporters of Odesa Chornomorets and Kharkiv Metalist football clubs announced a rally “For a United Ukraine” on May 2. According to the ECHR, that’s when “anti-Maidan posts began to appear on social media describing the event as a Nazi march and calling for people to prevent it.” Though the European court branded the description Russian “disinformation,” there’s extensive evidence that hooligans associated with both clubs had overt Neo-Nazi sympathies and associations, and well-established reputations for violence. The football clubs involved later went on to form the notorious Azov Battalion.

Fearing their tent encampment would be attacked, anti-Maidan activists resolved to disrupt the “pro-unity” march before it reached them. The ECHR revealed Ukraine’s security services and cybercrime unit had substantive intelligence indicating “violence, clashes and disorder” were certain on the day. However, authorities “ignored the available intelligence and the relevant warning signs,” and failed to take the “proper measures” to “stamp out any provocation.”

On May 2, 2014, anti-Nazi activists confronted the demonstrators as the march began, and violent clashes immediately erupted. At roughly 5:45 PM, in the precise manner of the Maidan Square sniper false flag massacre three months earlier, multiple anti-Maidan activists were fatally shot “by someone standing on a nearby balcony” using “a hunting gun,” the ruling states. Subsequently, “pro-unity protesters… gained the upper hand in the clashes,” and charged towards Kulykove Pole square.

Anti-Maidan activists took refuge in the Trade Unions House, a five-story building overlooking the square, while their ultranationalist adversaries “started setting fire to the tents,” according to the ruling. Gunfire and Molotov cocktails were exchanged by both sides, and before long, the building was ablaze. “Numerous calls” were made to the local fire brigade, including by police, “to no avail.” The court noted that the fire chief had “instructed his staff not to send any fire engines to Kulykove Pole without his explicit order,” so none were dispatched.

Many of those trapped in the building died when attempting to escape by jumping from its upper windows, and those that survived were treated to more ‘unity’ by the violent demonstrators outside. “Video footage shows pro-unity protesters attacking people who had jumped or had fallen,” the ECHR notes. It was not until 8:30 PM that firefighters finally entered the building and extinguished the blaze. Police then arrested 63 surviving activists they found remaining in the building or on the roof. Those detained weren’t released until two days later, when a several hundred-strong group of anti-Maidan protesters stormed the police station holding them.

The litany of security failures and industrial scale negligence by authorities that day was greatly aggravated by “local prosecutors, law enforcement, and military officers” not being “contactable for a large part or all of [the] time,” as they were coincidentally attending a meeting with Ukraine’s Deputy Prosecutor General. The ECHR “found the attitude and passivity of those officials inexplicable” – apparently unwilling to consider the obvious possibility that Ukrainian authorities purposefully made themselves incommunicado to ensure maximum mayhem and bloodshed, while insulating themselves from legal repercussions.

Because Ukrainian authorities “had not done everything they reasonably could to prevent the violence,” nor even “what could reasonably be expected of them to save people’s lives,” the ECHR found Kiev violated Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court also concluded authorities “failed to institute and conduct an effective investigation into the events in Odessa,” a violation of the “procedural aspect” of Article 2.

Anatomy of a Kiev coverup Though left unstated, the ECHR’s appraisal of the Odessa massacre, and the officials who failed in their most basic duties points to a deliberate state-level coverup.

For example, no effort was made to seal off “affected areas of the city centre” in the event’s aftermath. Instead, “the first thing” local authorities did “was to send cleaning and maintenance services to those areas,” meaning invaluable evidence was almost inevitably eradicated.

Unsurprisingly, when on-site inspections were finally carried out two weeks later, the probes “produced no meaningful results,” the ECHR noted. The Trade Unions House likewise “remained freely accessible to the public for 17 days after the events,” giving malicious actors plentiful time to manipulate, remove, or plant incriminating evidence at the site. Meanwhile, “many of the suspects absconded,” the court noted. Several criminal investigations were opened, only to go nowhere, left to expire under Ukraine’s statute of limitations.

Other cases that reached trial “remained pending for years,” before being dropped, despite “extensive photographic and video evidence regarding both the clashes in the city centre and the fire,” from which culprits’ identities could be easily discerned. The ECHR expressed no confidence that Ukrainian authorities “made genuine efforts to identify all the perpetrators,” and several forensic reports weren’t released for many years, in breach of basic protocols. Elsewhere, the Court noted a criminal investigation of an individual suspected of having shot at anti-Maidan activists was inexplicably discontinued on four separate occasions, on identical grounds.

The court also noted “serious defects” in investigations into Ukrainian officials’ role in the massacre. Primarily, this took the form of “prohibitive delays” and “significant periods of unexplained inactivity and stagnation” in opening cases. For instance, “although it had never been disputed that the fire service regional head had been responsible for the delayed deployment of fire engines to Kulykove Pole,” it took nearly two years for the Ukrainian government to officially investigate.

Similarly, Odessa’s regional police chief not only failed to implement any “contingency plan in the event of mass disorder,” as required, but internal documents claiming that security measures had in fact been undertaken were found to have been forged. A criminal investigation into the chief took nearly a year to materialize, then remained pending “for about eight years,” when it was closed after the statute of limitations expired.

The Georgian connection The notion that the incineration of anti-Maidan activists in May 2014 was an intentional and premeditated act of mass murder, conceived and directed by Kiev’s US-installed far-right government, was apparently not considered by the ECHR. But testimonies from a Ukrainian parliamentary commission which was instituted in the massacre’s immediate aftermath indicate the violence was not a freak twist of fate spontaneously produced by two hostile factions clashing in Odessa, as the ruling suggests.

That parliamentary commission found Ukrainian national and regional officials explicitly planned to use far-right activists drawn from the fascist Maidan Self-Defence to violently suppress Odessa’s would-be separatists, and disperse all those camped by the Trade Unions House. Moreover, the notorious ultra-nationalist Ukrainian politician Andriy Parubiy and 500 of its armed members of Maidan Self-Defense were dispatched to the city from Kiev on the eve of the massacre.

From 1998 – 2004, Parubiy served as founder and leader of Neo-Nazi paramilitary faction Patriot of Ukraine. He also headed Kiev’s National Security and Defence Council at the time of the Odessa massacre. Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigations immediately began scrutinizing Parubiy’s role in the May 2014 events after he was replaced as lead parliamentary speaker, following the country’s 2019 general election. This probe has seemingly come to nothing since, although a year prior a Georgian militant testified to Israeli documentarians that he engaged in “provocations” in the Odessa massacre under the command of Parubiy, who told him to attack anti-Maidan activists and “burn everything.”

That militant was one of several Georgian fighters who has admitted they were personally responsible for the February 2014 Maidan Square false flag sniper massacre, under the command of ultranationalist Ukrainian figures like Parubiy, and Mikhael Saakashvili, the founder of infamous mercenary brigade Georgian Legion. The slaughter in Maidan brought about the end of Viktor Yanukovych’s government, and sent Ukraine hurtling towards war with Russia.

The Odessa massacre was another chapter in that morbid saga – and Europe’s foremost human rights court has now formally laid responsibility for the horror at Kiev’s feet.

Other famous “rulings” by this court of crazies:

European Court Rules Topless Feminist Who Profaned Paris Church Had Right to ‘Freedom of Expression’
10/27/2022, 9:17:36 PM · by marshmallow · 13 replies
LifeSite News ^ | 10/13/22 | Jeanne Smits
‘Gay cake’ complaint ruled inadmissible by European court
1/14/2022, 2:29:16 PM · by Pontiac · 6 replies

Irish Times ^ | 1/6/22 | Freya McClements
CORONAVIRUSEuropean Court of Human Rights Rules That Mandatory Vaccinations Are Legal
4/9/2021, 7:34:44 PM · by Jan_Sobieski · 20 replies
Summit News ^ | 04/08/2021 | Paul Joseph Watson

Belfast bakery ‘gay cake’ dispute referred to European Court of Human Rights [Northern Ireland]
8/15/2019, 1:38:38 PM · by Olog-hai · 19 replies
RTÉ News ^ | Thursday, 15 Aug 2019 17:21

European court rejects German couple’s home-schooling appeal
1/10/2019, 10:33:04 AM · by Olog-hai · 11 replies
Associated Press ^ | January 10, 2019 | David Rising

Former ECHR Judge: Turkey is obliged to comply with the ECHR
11/21/2018, 10:13:51 PM · by Texas Fossil · 9 replies
ANF News ^ | Wednesday, 21 Nov 2018, 11:30 | ZEYNEP KURAY

Erdogan says Turkey not bound by European court’s ruling to release Demirtas
11/21/2018, 9:51:06 PM · by Texas Fossil · 11 replies
Stockholm Center for Freedom ^ | November 20, 2018 | SCF

Calling Mohammed a Pedophile Not Covered by Free Speech, European Court Rules
10/26/2018, 7:29:52 AM · by Mr. Mojo · 91 replies
CNS News ^ | October 26, 2018 | Patrick Goodenough

ETA airport bombers win compensation victory [Spain: Basque terrorists]
2/14/2018, 11:07:41 PM · by Olog-hai · 6 replies
TheLocal.es ^ | 14 February 2018 08:50 CET+01:00 | AFP

‘Death Panel’: European Court Says Terminal Baby Must Die Despite Parents Funding Extra Car
6/29/2017, 9:06:37 PM · by Hojczyk · 45 replies
Breitbart ^ | June 29,2017 | Liam Deacon

German parents go to court after police seize kids over homeschooling
4/6/2017, 12:54:34 PM · by Olog-hai · 28 replies
TheLocal.de ^ | 6 April 2017 15:24 CEST+02:00 | DPA/The Local

ECHR - KGB killings of Lithuanian partisans not a genocide
11/4/2015, 7:37:10 AM · by WhiskeyX · 8 replies
The Baltic Times ^ | 2015-10-21 | BNS/TBT Staff

Put UK back in charge of human rights laws
10/3/2014, 12:08:23 PM · by Olog-hai
Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 17:58 EST, 2 October 2014 | (Daily Mail Comment)
European court condemns UK again over prisoner vote ban
8/12/2014, 10:44:41 AM · by Olog-hai · 18 replies
EUbusiness ^ | 12 August 2014, 12:42 CET | (AFP)

Greek Jewish Community Takes Germany to Court
2/25/2014, 2:25:46 AM · by Olog-hai
INN ^ | 2/25/2014, 6:16 AM | Elad Benari
Is UK caving in to Europe’s call to scrap life term? Cameron accused of planning to…
1/3/2014, 9:32:41 AM · by Olog-hai · 10 replies
Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 19:33 EST, 2 January 2014 | Jack Doyle

A great day for British justice: Theresa May vows to take UK out of European Court of Human Rights
3/3/2013, 1:50:15 AM · by Olog-hai · 5 replies
Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 23:11 EST, 2 March 2013 | Simon Walters

European Court Verdict: Rendition Victim El-Masri Awarded €60,000
12/13/2012, 7:52:39 PM · by Olog-hai · 1 replies
Der Spiegel ^ | 12/13/2012 | (cgh—with wire reports)

Britain must defy Europe over votes for prisoners, for the very soul of our democracy’s at stake
10/26/2012, 4:26:55 PM · by Olog-hai · 3 replies
Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 02:37 EST, 25 October 2012 | Dominic Raab
Next PageAdd to My Page | RSS

Put UK back in charge of human rights laws
Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 17:58 EST, 2 October 2014 | (Daily Mail Comment)
Posted on 10/3/2014, 12:08:23 PM by Olog-hai

For years, the Mail has campaigned against the insidious and remorseless undermining of the sovereignty of Parliament and our judicial system by the remote, unaccountable European Court of Human Rights.

From demanding that prisoners should get the vote to halting the deportation of terrorists who hate this country’s values, it is synonymous with judgments that fly in the face of common sense and the interests of the British people.

Indeed, judicial activism in Strasbourg—and, remember, some ECHR members represent countries with populations smaller than the London borough of Islington—has warped the original noble intentions of the British authors of the European Convention on Human Rights.

A document designed to prevent a repeat of the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps has instead become a charter for criminals and politically-correct special interest groups. …

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...

It is seven years since 48 people died during disturbances and a terrible fire in Odessa. The flames were still smoldering when Russia first began presenting the conflagration as a massacre by Ukrainian nationalists. This has continued regardless of several investigations, by the bipartisan 2 May Group; the Council of Europe’s International Advisory Panel and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Each has found that the earlier disturbances began when a large group of pro-Russian activists attacked a peaceful march in support of Ukrainian unity. From then on, weapons were used by both sides and six people were killed. Toward evening, pro-Ukrainian activists headed towards Kulikove Pole Square intending to destroy a tent camp set up by pro-Russian activists. The latter responded with gunfire and Molotov cocktails from the roof and windows of the Trade Union building. All independent reports agree that with Molotov cocktails being thrown both at and from the building, it is impossible to determine the source of the fire which caused the death of 42 pro-Russian activists.

https://cepa.org/article/russias-lie-machine-fans-flames-of-odessa-massacre/
s

A great day for British justice: Theresa May vows to take UK out of European Court of Human Rights
Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 23:11 EST, 2 March 2013 | Simon Walters
Posted on 3/3/2013, 1:50:15 AM by Olog-hai

Britain is set to pull out of the discredited European Convention on Human Rights that has allowed dangerous criminals and hate preachers to remain in the UK.

It marks a triumph for The Mail on Sunday’s campaign against the ludicrous abuses of justice carried out in the name of human rights.

The historic move, to be announced soon by Home Secretary Theresa May, would mean foreign courts could no longer meddle in British justice.

The European Convention has led to such hugely controversial decisions as banning the deportation of radical cleric Abu Qatada and giving British prisoners the right to vote. …

(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ..

“Leave it to you to site Wiki as a source.”

When wiki calls you a left-wing you must be left of wiki!

Robert Scheer (born April 4, 1936) is an American left-wing journalist who has written for Ramparts, the Los Angeles Times, Playboy, Hustler Magazine, Truthdig, ScheerPost and other publications as well as having written many books. His column for Truthdig was nationally syndicated by Creators Syndicate in publications such as The Huffington Post and The Nation. He is a clinical professor of communications at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California. Scheer is the former editor in-chief for the Webby Award-winning[1] online magazine Truthdig.[2] For many years, he co-hosted the nationally syndicated political analysis radio program Left, Right & Center on National Public Radio (NPR), produced at public radio station KCRW in Santa Monica

The making of a myth How Russian media uses a 2014 fire in Odesa to justify the war on Ukraine

Ten years ago, in early May 2014, after several months of widespread political unrest in Odesa, Ukraine, street clashes between pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine factions resulted in a deadly fire in the city’s Trade Unions building. It’s still unclear who exactly is to blame for the deaths. Nonetheless, the Russian state-run media machine started churning out propaganda about the fire the very next day, characterizing the events as a merciless attack by “Ukrainian neo-Nazis” on Russian-speaking civilians. In the decade since, the Trade Unions building fire has entered Russian political mythology. It remains one of the main stories Russian propaganda uses to dehumanize Ukrainians and justify its war on the country.

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/05/08/the-making-of-a-myth

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.