- Target:
- Government of Ukraine
- Region:
- GLOBAL
Sergey Belous, M. A. in history, a native of Harkov, Ukraine, disappeared late in the evening on Friday, August 2, 2014, shortly after crossing the border from Russia into Ukraine.
He was detained by military forces under the control of Ukrainian authorities because of his journalistic activities in foreign media.
He is last reported to be under interrogation in Kiev and threatened with forcible induction into the Ukrainian army to be sent against his will to fight in the east of the country.
Sergey Belous has been residing in Belgrade, Serbia, since September 2013. He arrived in Belgrade before current unrest began in the Ukraine with the intention of collecting data for his doctoral dissertation on the internationalization of the Kosovo crisis in the 1990s. Civil disorder in the Ukraine disrupted his plans to return to his homeland.
As a member of the Russian-speaking population under threat from the regime which seized power in Ukraine in February 2014, Sergey decided that it would be safer to remain in Serbia for the time being. In the meantime, Sergey wrote a number of analytical articles for Belgrade weekly “Pechat” and other publications. As part of his academic research he visited Kosovo and Metohija on numerous occasions.
Immediately after the February 22, 2014 coup in Kiev the Third Secretary of the Ukrainian Embassy in Belgrade revealed to Sergey that he had been a secret member of the extreme right-wing Right Sector for some time and he warned Sergey threateningly that the embassy was following his journalistic activities closely and “keeping an eye” on him.
The disappearance of Sergey Belous, last seen in the proximity of a regime checkpoint on the territory of the Donetsk Republic on Friday evening, August 2, raises extraordinary concern.
We urge you to sign this petition for the immediate and unconditional release of Sergey Belous by Ukrainian authorities which are unlawfully holding him under detention.
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The Freedom For Sergey Belous petition to Government of Ukraine was written by Freedom for Sergey Belous and is in the category Politics at GoPetition.