HER FAMILY says the health of Yulia Tymoshenko is seriously deteriorating. The former Ukrainian prime minister, currently serving a seven-year jail sentence on widely seen as trumped-up charges of abuse of office, has been on hunger strike since last week in protest at abuse during her detention.
She is in considerable pain and urgently needs treatment outside Ukraine for long-term back problems, her daughter says. The Ukrainian ombudsman’s office confirms she was beaten by guards during a forced transfer to a hospital two weeks ago for examination.
Her case, both the jailing and now the beating, have become major sources of friction between Ukraine and the EU, which has condemned the conviction as politically motivated. It has rightly told President Viktor Yanukovich that agreements on political association and free trade will not be signed as long as she remains in prison, and commission president José Manuel Barroso has said he will not visit the country.
The treatment of Tymoshenko, a former leader of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, and four seemingly unrelated “terrorist” bombings in the city of Dnipropetrovsk on Friday, have also cast a pall over the country’s shared hosting of the European Championships in June. Ukraine has assured Uefa that steps are being taken to ensure visitor safety, but a growing campaign for a political boycott over Tymoshenko has already enlisted several EU leaders, including German chancellor Angela Merkel. The Czech and German presidents have also called off visits, while the Austrians are refusing to attend a regional summit in Yalta. Even the Russian foreign ministry, most unusually, has called on the authorities to “demonstrate humanity” to Tymoshenko.
Ireland, currently chair of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe and to be succeeded in that role by Ukraine, is understood to be quietly engaged diplomatically with Kiev. It was, however, also party to a strong EU declaration demanding adequate medical treatment for Tymoshenko and access by her to her lawyers and family.
Tymoshenko, a populist with a flair for political theatre, remains an important figure following her narrow 2010 defeat by Yanukovich. Six months later she was charged with working against Ukraine’s interests in a 2009 energy deal with Russia, and several of her former allies in government, including a defence and interior minister, have also been jailed. Their cases are a test of Ukraine’s supposed democratic vocation.