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http://net.abimperio.net/en/node/1151Ukrainian Historians Ask for Support from Academic Community: Their Colleague Harrassed by Security Services
Submitted by moderator on Mon, 09/13/2010 - 07:36.
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Well-known Ukrainian historian, Professor of Lviv National University Yaroslav Grytsak and Academic Director of the Lviv Center for Urban History of East Central Europe Tarik Cyril Amar expressed their concern about recent detainment and harrassment of their colleague, Ruslan Zabilyi, by Ukrainian security services.
Historians launched a letter of protest campaign to support him. The Ukrainian authorities accused Ruslan Zabilyi of allegedly "preparing an act aimed at making public the secrets of the state".
More detailed information about this incident can be found HERE
Yaroslav Grytsak and Tarik Amar direct their appeal to scholars worldwide:
Dear Colleagues,
As you may already know, a few days ago a young Ukrainian historian, Ruslan Zabilyi, was harassed by the Ukrainian secret service.
This is another sign that the conditions for academic and intellectual freedom in Ukraine are rapidly deteriorating. Several of our colleagues who are dealing with Ukrainian/East European studies have drafted a letter of protest, which we enclose. (A Ukrainian version will also follow very soon.)
We understand (and have written) this protest as a matter of principle and independent from the specific views of Ruslan Zabilyi and would like to invite everyone to join "in a bipartisan spirit," as it were, whether they share or do not share his positions. What is at issue are academic freedom and pluralism in Ukraine as such.
We would like to ask you to support this initiative by joining us and signing this letter. We would also appreciate it very much if you could circulate this letter further to obtain wider support from the international public and community of scholars.
Many thanks in advance for your support!
Please send your e-signatures with your titles to our addresses:
[email protected][email protected]Yaroslav Hrytsak, Tarik Cyril Amar
net.abimperio.net joins the campaign, you can support the protesters by leaving your name in the comment after (if you are a registered member) or just email us:
[email protected] (please indicate your affiliation or status).
A LETTER OF PUBLIC PROTEST
We protest against the harassment of a historian by the Ukrainian secret service, or SBU.
On 9 September 2010 the SBU detained the historian Ruslan Zabilyi and confiscated his research material. Now the SBU is seeking to launch a criminal case against him.
Whether we share Ruslan Zabilyi’s views or not, we consider it absolutely impermissible for a security service to harass researchers and obstruct intellectual activities.
Many of us are signing this petition in spite of the fact that we seriously disagree with Ruslan Zabily’s politics and his views of Ukrainian history. Even while we abhor the politicization of history that has become so evident in the recent years of Orange versus anti-Orange debates, we believe that the resolution of scholarly disputes depends upon the free flow of ideas, and free access to historical sources no matter how controversial they may be.
We believe that a truly democratic and independent Ukraine needs and facilitates full and free inquiry into its history. Such an enquiry can only take place with the broadest access to Ukrainian archives.
Given the record of denial of access to archives and libraries, suppression of dissenting views, denial of academic freedom, and isolation of Ukraine from the international scholarly community in the past, any Ukrainian government must be especially vigiliant not to revive such practices.
Against this background, the treatment of Ruslan Zabilyi points to a reversion to regrettable and dangerous practices of the totalitarian past. We find this incident extremely worrying, especially in view of earlier illegitimate uses made of the SBU in the realm of academia and civil society under the new Ukrainian government.
Even strong disagreements about Ukraine’s past and its politics of memory and history cannot be solved by methods that amount to harassment and intimidation. Ukraine’s reputation is also bound to suffer very severely from such methods.
We call on the SBU and the Ukrainian government to show responsibility.
We call on Ukraine’s public and its scholarly community not to tolerate the intrusion of blatant police methods where research, scholarly dispute, and public debate should be the means of resolving – or living with – differences. We urge the Ukrainian public and the Ukrainian and international scholarly community to join us in supporting Ruslan Zabilyi and in censuring the use of police methods to try to quash scholarly discussion.