Association Svoboda Insist "The Volyn Massacre" Exhibit Stirs Religious Hostility

KYIV – On April 8, 2010, in the Ukrainian House in  Kyiv, during the opening of a documentary photo exhibition “The Volyn Massacre: Polish and Jewish victims of the OUN-UPA [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists-Ukrainian Insurgent Army],” the police detained 15 representatives of the all-Ukrainian association Svoboda and other national-patriotic organizations and parties for violation of public order.  UNIAN received a report from the Ministry of Internal affairs that the mentioned persons broke into the exhibition hall and began to destroy the exhibits.

The press service of the association reported to UNIAN that the Kyiv City Organization of the all-Ukrainian association Svoboda addressed the Security Service of Ukraine with a request to prohibit the exhibition organized by the public movement “Russian-speaking Ukraine” and the Society for Honoring the Memory of Victims of the Crimes of Ukrainian Nationalists (Poland). 

Svoboda considers the exhibition Ukrainophobic and demands that the Security Service of Ukraine declare a Polish Catholic priest Tadeush Isakovich-Zaleskyi, who heads the exhibition, a persona non grata in Ukraine.

Representatives of Svoboda insist that the exhibition is aimed at “stirring international and religious hostility and humiliation of the national honor and dignity of Ukrainians” and should be prohibited on the basis of Article 161 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.