A Mother Of 2 Brutally Beaten And Left In Ditch. Her Crime? She's An Anti-Govt Journalist.
Shocking photos emerge of prominent journalist beaten as she covered pro-Europe protests.
By Sadho Ram — 26 Dec 2013, 03:08 PM — Updated almost 11 years ago
A group of men viciously attacked and beat up a prominent Ukrainian journalist and civic activist Tetyana Chornovol outside Kyiv about 1:30 a.m. on Dec. 25. Here's what happened.
Tatyana Chornovol was driving home at about 1:30 a.m. local time (3:30 a.m. Moscow time) when she noticed she was being followed by a dark-colored SUV, Ukrainian police said.
The car cut off Chornovol’s vehicle and forced her off the side of the road, after which several men jumped out and smashed the journalist’s rear car window, according to the police statement.
Dashboard camera in the car of journalist and activist Tetyana Chornovil shows two men exiting the jeep that repeatedly smashed into her car.
Image via ntd.tvPolice said the men dragged Chornovol out of her car and brutally beat her before abandoning her in a ditch.
nytimes.comPictures and a video of the journalist posted online showed Chernovol with the right side of her face and her lips massively swollen and bloody. She is currently hospitalized with a concussion.
Journalist and activist Tetyana Chornovol lies in a hospital bed after unknown men beat her on her way home on Dec. 25.
Image via kyivpost.com
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych urged police on Wednesday to investigate the attack as quickly as possible. Here's what prompted the attack.
Chernovol, an investigative journalist, blogger and mother of two children, had posted photos of what she alleged was the Ukrainian interior minister’s luxury villa on local web portal Ukrainskaya Pravda hours before the attack.
reuters.com
She also regularly reported on the development of Ukraine’s protest movement that emerged at the end of November after the president suddenly backed out of an association agreement with the European Union, and openly supported the country’s political opposition.
kyivpost.comUkrainian police said they have opened a criminal investigation into the incident for hooliganism, which is punishable by up to four years in prison under Ukrainian law. They did not identify in the statement how many attackers were involved.
Ukrainian opposition leader Anatoly Gritsenko, however, was quoted by local news portal Tsn.ua as saying that there were three attackers, and that the make and model of their car had been caught on a dashboard camera installed in Chernovol’s vehicle.
nytimes.com“It [the video] is currently being studied at the headquarters of Maidan,” Gritsenko said according to Tsn.ua, referring to the central square in Kiev that has served as the base for ongoing anti-government protests over the last month.
The attack was the second on a Ukrainian opposition activist in as many days, according to RIA Novosti
Dmitry Pilipets, a civic activist and organizer of protests in the eastern city of Kharkiv, was stabbed four times on the street by two unknown male attackers late Tuesday night.
cnn.comHe was hospitalized Wednesday in stable condition, according to the news agency.
wsj.comThe latest assault could increase tensions between the state and demonstrators who have braved sub-zero temperatures and set up tents and barricades in the city center to voice their opposition to closer ties with Russia.
telegraph.co.uk
Activists outside the Ukrainian Interior Ministry in Kiev, hold a photo showing the injuries to journalist Tetiana Chornovol.
Image via turner.com
