On Thursday, 19th March, conscientious objector and human rights defender Yurii Sheliazhenko was detained by the Ukrainian authorities in Kyiv.
This is just weeks after our joint call to the authorities to withdraw from such persecutions of conscientious objectors and withdraw their ongoing persecution of Mr. Sheliazhenko.
According to the information available, Mr. Sheliazhenko was apprehended by officers of the Pechersk District Police in Kyiv without a proper legal basis and without compliance with the procedural safeguards required by Ukrainian law.
Yurii Sheliazhenko is a well-known conscientious objector, publicly declared since 1998, a pacifist and a human rights defender. He is also an academic, the executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement (a member of War Resisters International), Director of the Institute of Peace and Law in Ukraine, and a Board member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection and of World Beyond War.
Find more information in our recent statement in support of Yurii here.
