bosna, when these eagles are done with the garbage in the Caucasus, they certainly will have more time to help our Serbian friends. Tell us how you feel about it. But be honest - I caught you lying few times already..

bosna' BTW thank you for helping us to make a point here, so everybody will see the animals who kill defenseless POW. Woa! that takes a real bravery. Here's another one caught in the "act of bravery" using civilians as human shield...

Locc and balalayaka:
That was a nice sexual orientation lesson 🙂

pro chechen:
I feel sorry for you. To take a pride in terrorists who use inocent civilans as shields.
This is very sick.

everest:
do you also like dead bodies?

bosna:
Do not you think that for terrorists it is kind of stupid to have they picture taken? Now every intelegent service will have it on a file. Did you notice that there is no clear picture of Khatab? Smart guy, but nasty

They are all Muslims do you expect any thing else

oops! Sorry Chechen!

Damn you Caucasian, you made me laugh so hard at that bosna picture!

p.s. The Russian federal army launched 20 Scuds over the weekend against Chechen targets, U.S. intelligence reports say. There are no Chechen eye witnesses.. (left alive).

Under the new Ukrainian Constitution adopted in 1996 the President, elected for a 5-year term, and a one-chamber Parliament (the Rada), elected for a 4-year term, share responsibility for governance. (Transitional provisions continue the current President's and Parliament's terms until October 1999, and March 1998, respectively.) President Leonid Kuchma was elected in 1994. The President appoints the Cabinet and controls government operations. Under the new Constitution the judiciary is funded as an independent branch, instead of through the Ministry of Justice. However, the court system remains subject to political interference.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Ministry of Defense all have equal status and report to the President through the Cabinet. The heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense sit in the Cabinet of Ministers. In April the President established by decree the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). However, the NBI had not been fully organized by year's end; the Parliament refused to provide any funding for the NBI, pending the adoption a law formally establishing it. The chairmen of the SBU and the newly created NBI are also members of the Cabinet, but they are not cabinet ministers. The armed forces have largely remained outside politics. Although the SBU has not interfered in the political process, it can affect it through criminal investigations against politicians and influential businessmen. Reportedly, the Government has used government agencies, especially the Tax Inspectorate, to disrupt or eliminate the businesses of competitors and political opponents. Despite the Government's adoption of a sweeping anti-corruption program, the SBU, police, and Prosecutor's Office have drawn domestic and international criticism for their failure to take adequate action to curb institutional corruption and abuse in the Government. Many high profile corruption cases, which were opened earlier, have been dropped, ostensibly because of lack of incriminating evidence. Members of the security forces committed human rights abuses.

Ukraine is making a difficult transition from central planning to a market-based economy. According to official statistics, about half of the work force is formally employed in manufacturing, with the balance divided between services and agriculture, although in reality many industrial enterprises have reduced or stopped production. Exports are diversified and include metals, chemicals, sugar, and semi-finished goods. Annual per capita gross domestic product for 1997 was approximately $1,000. In 1996 Ukraine achieved a measure of macroeconomic stability for the first time since independence. Inflation, which at times had accelerated to hyperinflation, was 10 percent for 1997. The private sector has grown significantly and now represents a substantial portion of the economy, although growth in the unofficial shadow economy is not fully reflected in official government statistics. Nevertheless, the country remains in a serious economic crisis. Industrial output continues to decline, and shrinking revenue has left millions of employees unpaid for many months. The pace of reform was erratic during the year, particularly in the agricultural sector. Despite some progress on privatization and deregulation, investment remains at low levels, with many potential investors discouraged by onerous and arbitrary taxation and licensing practices.

Overall, Ukraine continued the process of building a law-based civil society. Reports of human rights violations remained at the same low level as in 1996. Problems continue in the unreformed legal and prison systems, and the army. Police and prison officials regularly beat detainees and prisoners; beating of conscripts is common in the army. The Government rarely punishes officials who commit such abuses. Prison conditions remain poor, and lengthy pretrial detention under poor conditions is a common problem. The judiciary is overburdened and lacks sufficient funding and staff. Long delays in trials are a problem. While progress has been made toward ensuring the independence of the judiciary, political interference continues to affect the judicial process. There are occasional government attempts to control the press and limit freedom of speech, and significant limits on freedom of association and on nonnative religious organizations. Laws governing political party organizations have the potential to limit human rights. Significant societal anti-Semitism, violence against women and children, as well as discrimination against women, and both ethnic and religious minorities, persist.

The efficacy of the 1996 Constitution and the safeguards that it provides for human rights depends on enabling legislation, most of which has not yet been passed. The power of the Constitutional Court remains untested. The Constitution's provision for a human rights ombudsman appointed by Parliament to assist citizens in defending their rights was first adopted on November 13. On December 5 the President vetoed the law, giving his requirements that the Ombudsman should not be a member of any political party and that he should be a professional lawyer. However, subsequently the Parliament incorporated most of the presidential proposals into the new version and adopted the law on December 23. (The President signed the bill into law on January 10, 1998.)

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:

a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

There were no known political killings by government agents. In some instances the line between politically motivated killing and criminal activities was difficult to distinguish. The Government's inability to stem economic decline and check the growth of violent, organized criminal activity had major repercussions. Politicians and politically-connected businessmen continued to be the victims--whether through killing or kidnaping--of organized criminal groups, aided in a few cases, either actively or passively, by corrupt officials.

During the year a member of the town council in Yevpatoriya, the regional property board director, and a governor in Razoolnensky district were killed. Police discovered that the governor's murder was ordered by the chairman of the district council's law and order commission. In April a director of the large steel plant in Olchivsk, Donetsk Oblast, narrowly avoided a bomb explosion in his hotel room. The mayor of Odesa claimed that gunmen, who were overpowered by police in an apartment facing the city hall in August, had planned to kill him.

The number of contract killings of members of the business community, often managers of state-owned enterprises, remained high, especially in the Crimea and Donetsk regions. Politicians were also targeted because of their influence over state-owned enterprises. In September the Crimean Deputy Minister for Tourism and Resorts was killed by a gunman. In December Arkadiy Tabachnyk of Odesa, a prominent businessman with very high political connections, and his bodyguard were also killed by a gunman. Also in December a bomb killed one nurse and injured several other persons in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Simferopol in an assassination attempt on a local Crimean businessman with criminal connections. There have been no arrests in these cases. As of August there were 73 contract murders; in all of 1996 there were 157 contract murders.

Pervasive organized crime and contract killings have been particularly rampant in the Donetsk region and Crimea. The undermining of governmental authority was particularly serious in Crimea. The Kiev central government in many matters exerts little institutional control over the peninsula, and the Crimean authorities, including members of the executive bodies and the legislature, are widely alleged to be compromised by ties to organized criminal elements. According to police reports, 51 local council deputies are linked to the organized criminal groups, including 11 of 49 members of the city council in Simferopol. Four local deputies were killed last year. The Prosecutor's Office opened five criminal cases against local deputies, including a member of the Crimean legislature. While recognizing the worsening crime scene, in 1996 the new Crimean police leadership claimed to have solved 18 of 36 contract murders and to have detained over 109 criminal leaders, with some 30 more detained in 1997. However, police leadership complains that loopholes in the existing criminal law allow criminal leaders to evade punishment in most cases. In 1996 some 1,000 Crimean policemen, including senior officers, were fired, and over 1000 were disciplined.

The 1996 alleged assassination attempt on the then-prime minister, Pavlo Lazarenko, whose car reportedly barely escaped a bomb explosion, and the killing of Rada deputy and business magnate, Yevhen Scherban, remain unsolved. The 1996 attempt on the mayor of Sevastopol remains unresolved.

b. Disappearance

There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.

The alleged kidnaping in 1996 of the former speaker of the Crimean legislature remains unsolved.

The January 1994 disappearance of Myhailo Boichyshyn, a prominent leader of the Popular Movement of Ukraine (RUKH), remains unsolved.

c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

The Constitution prohibits torture; however, police and prison officials regularly beat detainees and prisoners. Amnesty International in Ukraine reports that riot police beat and torture prisoners during their regular training exercises at jails. In 1996 the human rights group reported about 20 examples of such mistreatment. There is no effective mechanism for registering complaints about mistreatment or for obtaining redress. The human rights ombudsman required by the new Constitution may provide such a mechanism once it is established. The Government made no known efforts during the year to end the practice or to punish officials who committed or abetted such abuses. However, after the 1996 death of a suspect in the Security Service detention center (SBU) in Lviv, who was allegedly beaten to death by guards, the SBU leadership closed the facility and fired 36 of its 49 personnel. There were no developments in the case of a member of Parliament from Kiev, Myroslav Horbatyuk (who was placed in an intensive care unit after a brutal assault), and a former parliamentarian from Zaporizhzhia, Victor Slesarenko (whose car was blown up). They had claimed that violent attacks against them were linked to their investigations into high-level corruption in the Government. The Government has not yet announced the results of its investigations of these allegations.

Beating of recruits by senior conscripts, sometimes resulting in death or suicide of the young soldiers, remains common in the army, especially in the notoriously violent penal units. Police corruption remains a serious problem.

Conditions in pretrial detention facilities routinely fail to meet minimum international standards. Inmates are sometimes held in investigative isolation for extended periods and subjected to intimidation and mistreatment by jail guards and other inmates. Overcrowding is common in the pretrial and investigative detention centers. Prison overcrowding led the Government to release over 20,000 convicts under a mass amnesty, including some convicted of serious, violent crime.

Prison conditions are poor. Despite government efforts to maintain minimum international standards in the prisons for convicted prisoners, the worsening economic situation led to a further deterioration of these facilities. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and inadequate medical care are all common problems in the prisons.

The incidence of murders by inmates and forced suicides in prisons is reportedly high. In 1996 there were 84 suicides in jails. No official statistics for prison murders are available.

The Government generally permits prison visits by human rights monitors.

d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

The law provides that authorities may detain a person suspected of a crime for 3 days without a warrant. The Constitution provides that only the courts may issue arrest warrants, but under its transitional provisions the Prosecutor's Office retains the authority to issue arrest and search warrants until 2001. An arrest order must be issued if the period of detention exceeds 3 days. The maximum period of detention after charges have been filed is 18 months, but the law does not limit the aggregate time of detention before and during the trial. The law permits citizens to contest an arrest in court or appeal to the prosecutor.

By law a trial must begin no later than 3 weeks after the defendant is indicted. This requirement is frequently not met by the overburdened court system, where months may pass before a defendant is finally brought to trial.

The law stipulates that a defense attorney be provided without charge to the indigent from the moment of detention or the filing of charges, whichever comes first. There are insufficient numbers of defense attorneys to protect suspects from unlawful, lengthy imprisonment under extremely poor conditions. Although the concept of providing attorneys from the state system remains in principle, public attorneys often refuse to defend indigents for the low government fee. While in custody a suspect or a prisoner is allowed by law to talk with a lawyer in private; however, human rights groups report that the client-attorney privilege is occasionally denied by prison or investigative officials. To protect the defendant, each investigative file must contain a document signed by the defendant attesting that the charges against him, his right to an attorney, and his right not to give evidence against himself or his relatives, have been explained to him,. An appeals court may dismiss a conviction or order a new trial if this document is missing. As defendants increasingly became aware of their rights, they insisted on observance of these procedures. However, many persons still were unaware of these safeguards.

Exile as a punishment no longer exists in the law, and the Government observes this prohibition.

According to 1996 Interior Ministry statistics, of a total prison population of 223,000 persons, approximately 45,000 were held in pretrial detention.

There were no reports of political detainees.

A group of Parliamentarians described as political persecution the detention and prosecution on criminal charges of hooliganism of a Parliamentary aide and member of the Ukrainian Radical Nationalist Group, UNA-UNSO, who wrote graffiti criticizing Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko during his 1997 visit to Kiev.

e. Denial of Fair Public Trial

The Constitution provides for the establishment of an independent judiciary; however, the judiciary remains subject to political interference.

The existing court system is divided into courts of general jurisdiction and arbitration, or commercial, courts. The courts of general jurisdiction are divided into criminal and civil sections. The courts are organized on three levels: rayon (district or people's) courts, oblast (regional) courts, and the Supreme Court. There are 742 district and city courts, 27 regional courts, 26 military courts, and one interregional court. All may act as a court of first instance depending on the nature and seriousness of the crime. A case heard in the first instance by the Supreme Court, therefore, may not be appealed or overruled. Military courts only handle cases involving military personnel.

There are no clear rules to determine which court first hears a case.

The 1996 Constitution provides for a restructuring of the judiciary. Justice is to be administered by the Constitutional Court and general jurisdiction courts with the Supreme Court at their head. The judicial system is also to include local and appeals courts, as well as special courts to be established by future legislation, headed by their respective highest courts. However, pending formation of the new judicial system, the old system remains in place, including the present Supreme and Supreme Arbitration Court, for a maximum period of 5 years, until 2001.

The Parliament, the President, and the Congress of Judges each appoint 6 of the Constitutional Court's 18 members for 9-year terms. The Court Chairman is elected for a 3-year term by the 18 justices from among their own ranks. As of September, all positions on the court were filled. The Constitutional Court is the ultimate interpreter of legislation and the Constitution. It determines the constitutionality of legislation, of presidential edicts, of cabinet acts, and of acts of the Crimean Autonomous Republic. The Constitutional Court hears cases at the request of the President, at least 45 Parliamentarians, the Supreme Court, the Parliament's Human Rights Ombudsman, or the Crimean legislature. While under the Constitution a citizen has the right to apply to any court, citizens can apply to the Constitutional court only through the Human Rights Ombudsman.

The Constitution strengthens the courts by establishing the principle of judicial review. During the first half of the year, citizens filed over 6,000 civil suits against the Government, compared with 8,000 suits in 1996. Most of these cases were disputes over unpaid wages. According to the Supreme Court, citizens win most such cases, although virtually no verdicts are enforced.

The Criminal Procedures Code allows the following officials to suspend court decisions: Prosecutor General (or his Deputies), Head of the Supreme Court (or his deputies), and heads of the regional courts and Kiev municipal court (or their deputies). Such suspension is subject to the approval by the presidium of the regional court (respectively, Kiev municipal court and Supreme Court). It is believed that this system induces interference, manipulation and corruption.

Prosecutors, like the courts, are also organized into offices at the rayon, oblast, and republic levels. They are ultimately responsible to the Prosecutor General, who is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Parliament for a 5-year term. Regional and district prosecutors are appointed by the Prosecutor General. Prosecutors and defense attorneys by law have equal status before the courts. In practice, however, prosecutors still are very influential because court proceedings are not conducted in an adversarial manner and the procuracy, in its pretrial investigative function, often acts in effect as a grand jury. A prosecutor directs all investigations of the Ministry of Internal affairs and the SBU, or he may use the investigative resources of his office. The Constitution considerably curtails the prosecutor's authority, limiting it to prosecution, representing the public interest in court, oversight of investigations, and implementation of court decisions. However, the transitional provisions of the Constitution allow the Prosecutor's Office to continue to conduct investigations and oversee general observance of the law, pending the formation of the new pretrial investigation system. In November the Constitutional Court interpreted the Procuracy Law, ruling that citizens can dispute prosecutors' decisions in court.

Judges are appointed by the President for an initial 5-year term, after which they are subject to parliamentary approval for lifetime tenure. In accordance with the Constitution, the Parliament began appointing judges to lifetime tenure positions, reappointing most currently serving judges, with few exceptions. The Parliament awarded lifetime tenure to 433 of the 4,719 judges whose terms were due to expire in 1997. Over 350 of 389 judges of the arbitration (commercial) courts already had lifetime tenure under the 1991 Arbitration Court Law. Judges are recommended for nomination by local qualification commissions to the Supreme Qualification Commission. Judges are selected for nomination or dismissal by the Supreme Judicial Council, which is also authorized to discipline judges-including judges of the Supreme Court and Supreme Special Courts-and prosecutors for violations of the law. The Supreme Judicial Council consists of 20 members nominated by the three branches of government and by professional associations from the law and procuracy sectors. It also includes the Chairman of the Supreme Court, the Minister of Justice, and the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. The press reported only one case of a judge being convicted for bribery. The Luhansk regional court gave a suspended sentence of 4 years to a judge in the town of Krasnodon for accepting a bribe of $1,000. The Supreme Court upheld the sentence.

Many judges and prosecutors were appointed during the Soviet era, when political influence pervaded the criminal justice system. Human rights lawyers claim that the judiciary is not free from government influence, particularly at the regional and local levels. Judges, prosecutors, and other court officials appear to remain closely attuned to local government interests. Organized crime elements are also widely alleged to influence court decisions. Although statistics are not available, the Justice Ministry reports that this year some judges have been disciplined and dismissed. However, since independence only four judges have been prosecuted on criminal charges for bribery, with no such cases resulting in a trial. No higher court judge has been disciplined to date. Criminal elements routinely use intimidation to induce victims and witnesses to withdraw or change their testimony. The law requires that a special police unit protect judges, witnesses, defendants, and their relatives. However, it has not yet been formed, and trial participants are vulnerable to pressure.

Human rights groups contend that judicial processes are sometimes affected by the biases of expert advisers, who answer to government investigative and prosecutorial bodies.

The judiciary is inefficient and lacks sufficient staff and funds. The funds earmarked for the judiciary in the budget are barely enough to pay the judges and the staff of the courts. According to the Justice Ministry, some 37 percent of the courts are inadequately housed. The authority of the judicial system is also undermined by a poor record of compliance with court decisions in civil and economic cases, while the provisions for criminal punishment under the criminal code for noncompliance with a court decision are rarely used.

The 1993 In July the Cabinet decided to form police protection units to provide security for judges, defendants and their relatives.

Under the existing court system, cases are decided by judges who sit singly (in principle with two public assessors), or in groups of three for more serious cases. As it has become increasingly difficult to find unpaid public assessors willing to attend a trial, most cases are tried by a single judge. The Constitution provides for public, adversarial trials, including a judge (or group of judges), public assessors, state prosecutor, defense and jury (if required by the law).

The Constitution includes procedural provisions to ensure a fair trial, including the right of a suspect or witness to refuse to testify against himself or his relatives. However, pending passage of legislation to implement the Constitution's provisions, a largely Soviet-era criminal justice system remains in place. While the defendant is presumed innocent, conviction rates have changed little since the Soviet era. Nearly all completed cases result in convictions. Judges frequently send cases unlikely to end in convictions back to the Prosecutor's Office for "additional investigation." Such cases may then be dropped or closed. It is commonly believed that suspects frequently bribe court officials to drop charges before cases go to trial, or to lessen or commute a sentence. Consequently, conviction rates are somewhat misleading. However, as courts have become more independent, the number of acquittals has increased each year. In May the Supreme Court Chairman made an unprecedented public warning to investigative agencies, particularly the police, against interfering in court decisions.

Complicated cases can take years to go to trial. In the interim, defendants wait in pretrial detention. The 1996 Amendment to the Criminal Procedures Code provides for bail, but to date it rarely has been used.

According to Interior Ministry statistics, in comparison with past years, greater numbers of convicted defendants are receiving some form of suspended sentence, in large part due to prison overcrowding. In 1996 about 138,000 persons received suspended sentences, while the prison population numbered approximately 223,000.

Current members of Parliament, members of local councils, and judges enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution unless the Parliament, the respective council, or the judiciary authority gives its consent to criminal proceedings. Consent is rarely given in practice.

There were no reports of political prisoners. A human rights group in Zaporizhzhya called Justice reported that its activist Stepan Shkarun was detained during the summer on charges of insulting a judge while attempting to expose corruption in the regional court. He alleged that the head of the regional court illegally received free gas from a haulage company in exchange for a favorable court ruling in a case involving the company's director. A human rights group claims that while he was in pre-trial detention in Dnipropetrovsk, Shkarun was beaten into signing a confession; he was released under amnesty a month later.

f. Arbitrary Interference With Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence

Although the Constitution requires that courts issue search warrants, this provision has not yet been implemented. During the transition period, prosecutors are issuing search warrants. The SBU, for reasons of national security, may conduct intrusive surveillance and searches without a warrant with the consent of the Prosecutor General. The Prosecutor General's Office oversees the SBU, but the extent to which it utilizes that authority to monitor SBU activities and to curb excesses by security officials is unknown. The Constitution provides citizens with the right to examine any dossier that the SBU has on them and to sue for physical or emotional damages incurred by an investigation. The procedure to implement and enforce this new right have not yet been established.

The remnants of Soviet control mechanisms survive in many guises. Militia personnel have the right to stop vehicles arbitrarily and need no probable cause to initiate extensive document checks and inspection of all parts of the vehicle. Citizens who have committed no violation, or only a minor one, often prefer to pay a bribe to avoid a time-consuming inspection. Police have the right to detain a person for up to 3 hours to verify identity. All internal passports contain a stamp indicating a citizen's residence and matrimonial status.

Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

a. Freedom of Speech and Press

The Constitution and a 1991 law provide for freedom of speech and of the press; however, the Government persistently attempts to control the press. The Government tolerates criticism on a selective basis. Many journalists practice self-censorship. The Government largely controls the broadcast media.

The print media, both independent and government-supported, demonstrate a tendency towards self-censorship on matters sensitive to the Government although this has been decreasing over time. The executive branch, through the Ministry of Press and Information, subsidizes the operations of some large-scale publications. The Ministry has warned some periodicals against fomenting ethnic tensions and conducting antistate propaganda and has applied to the Prosecutor's Office to open investigations into those newspapers. However, no newspapers are known to have been prosecuted as a result. Private newspapers have also been established and are free to function on a purely commercial basis. However, they practice self-censorship and are subject to various pressures such as control of access to affordable state-subsidized newsprint; dependence on political patrons who may facilitate financial support from the State Press Support Fund; close scrutiny from government officials, especially at the local level; and politically motivated visits by tax inspectors. In April the President issued a decree on support of the press that requires the Cabinet to draw up a list of publications needing government support, including those whose founders include central and local governments, public organizations, associations, unions, educational institutions, and newspaper employees. The journalistic community believes that this decree was intended to support loyal members of the press. The dependence of the subsidized and private press on the Government's patronage particularly inhibited criticism of the Government on the local level. Foreign-owned newspapers are permitted and foreign periodicals circulate freely.

The broadcast media remain largely under state ownership. They are managed by the State Committee on Television and Radio (Derzhteleradio), whose head, according to the new Constitution, is appointed by the President and confirmed by Parliament. The President and the Parliament each appoint half of the members to the regulatory board for broadcasting, the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting, which issues broadcasting licenses and allocates broadcasting time. The law entitles private and foreign companies to establish and operate their own transmission facilities, provided that they obtain a license from the National Council. A news program that covers domestic political developments, notably Vikna (Windows) has fended off attempts by Derzhteleradio to preview and revise the content of their programs. In April allegedly under pressure from the parliamentary leadership, the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council ordered the state-owned channel UT-2 to suspend the broadcasting of Pislyamova after it broadcast a report that was critical of the Communist regime in Cuba at the time of a Ukrainian parliamentary delegation's trip to Cuba. The program was suspended but was permitted to resume broadcasting a short time later, after public protests and the intervention of the President. In December, citing increasing political pressure, Pislyamova decided to cease broadcasting for the election period.

The Committee for Protection of State Secrets enjoys broadly defined powers over all media. According to journalists, it has not interfered with the practice of their craft. There is a comprehensive, specific regulation on state secrets whose publication is prohibited. In May the Cabinet adopted a regulation that further defined state secrets to include information on executions, the state of prisons, pretrial detention blocks, and centers for the forcible treatment of alcoholics. Article 125 of the Criminal Code prescribes imprisonment of up to 5 years for libel. There is no known separate regulation regarding public officials (except for the President). A criminal case was opened against Crimean journalist Tatyana Korobova on charges of libeling Crimean parliamentarian Lev Mirimskiy who objected to her writing about his criminal connections. Article 7 of the Civil Code allows anyone, including public officials, to sue for damages if circulated information, including a publication, is untrue or if it insults a person's honor or dignity. Journalists complain that the law is biased against them because it does not limit damages.

An editor of the newspaper Opositsiya, Ivan Makar, was given a 2-year suspended sentence in 1996 for libeling the President and his staff. Although he appealed the court decision, this year the higher court confirmed the sentence. The newspaper was closed by order of a Kiev court for publishing caricatures of the President and his staff. Its equipment was confiscated.

Reporting on organized crime and corruption in the Government, including misconduct by selected high-ranking cabinet and administration officials, is becoming increasingly bold. Journalists contend that they have been subjected to threats, including
Under the new Ukrainian Constitution adopted in 1996 the President, elected for a 5-year term, and a one-chamber Parliament (the Rada), elected for a 4-year term, share responsibility for governance. (Transitional provisions continue the current President's and Parliament's terms until October 1999, and March 1998, respectively.) President Leonid Kuchma was elected in 1994. The President appoints the Cabinet and controls government operations. Under the new Constitution the judiciary is funded as an independent branch, instead of through the Ministry of Justice. However, the court system remains subject to political interference.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Ministry of Defense all have equal status and report to the President through the Cabinet. The heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense sit in the Cabinet of Ministers. In April the President established by decree the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). However, the NBI had not been fully organized by year's end; the Parliament refused to provide any funding for the NBI, pending the adoption a law formally establishing it. The chairmen of the SBU and the newly created NBI are also members of the Cabinet, but they are not cabinet ministers. The armed forces have largely remained outside politics. Although the SBU has not interfered in the political process, it can affect it through criminal investigations against politicians and influential businessmen. Reportedly, the Government has used government agencies, especially the Tax Inspectorate, to disrupt or eliminate the businesses of competitors and political opponents. Despite the Government's adoption of a sweeping anti-corruption program, the SBU, police, and Prosecutor's Office have drawn domestic and international criticism for their failure to take adequate action to curb institutional corruption and abuse in the Government. Many high profile corruption cases, which were opened earlier, have been dropped, ostensibly because of lack of incriminating evidence. Members of the security forces committed human rights abuses.

Ukraine is making a difficult transition from central planning to a market-based economy. According to official statistics, about half of the work force is formally employed in manufacturing, with the balance divided between services and agriculture, although in reality many industrial enterprises have reduced or stopped production. Exports are diversified and include metals, chemicals, sugar, and semi-finished goods. Annual per capita gross domestic product for 1997 was approximately $1,000. In 1996 Ukraine achieved a measure of macroeconomic stability for the first time since independence. Inflation, which at times had accelerated to hyperinflation, was 10 percent for 1997. The private sector has grown significantly and now represents a substantial portion of the economy, although growth in the unofficial shadow economy is not fully reflected in official government statistics. Nevertheless, the country remains in a serious economic crisis. Industrial output continues to decline, and shrinking revenue has left millions of employees unpaid for many months. The pace of reform was erratic during the year, particularly in the agricultural sector. Despite some progress on privatization and deregulation, investment remains at low levels, with many potential investors discouraged by onerous and arbitrary taxation and licensing practices.

Overall, Ukraine continued the process of building a law-based civil society. Reports of human rights violations remained at the same low level as in 1996. Problems continue in the unreformed legal and prison systems, and the army. Police and prison officials regularly beat detainees and prisoners; beating of conscripts is common in the army. The Government rarely punishes officials who commit such abuses. Prison conditions remain poor, and lengthy pretrial detention under poor conditions is a common problem. The judiciary is overburdened and lacks sufficient funding and staff. Long delays in trials are a problem. While progress has been made toward ensuring the independence of the judiciary, political interference continues to affect the judicial process. There are occasional government attempts to control the press and limit freedom of speech, and significant limits on freedom of association and on nonnative religious organizations. Laws governing political party organizations have the potential to limit human rights. Significant societal anti-Semitism, violence against women and children, as well as discrimination against women, and both ethnic and religious minorities, persist.

The efficacy of the 1996 Constitution and the safeguards that it provides for human rights depends on enabling legislation, most of which has not yet been passed. The power of the Constitutional Court remains untested. The Constitution's provision for a human rights ombudsman appointed by Parliament to assist citizens in defending their rights was first adopted on November 13. On December 5 the President vetoed the law, giving his requirements that the Ombudsman should not be a member of any political party and that he should be a professional lawyer. However, subsequently the Parliament incorporated most of the presidential proposals into the new version and adopted the law on December 23. (The President signed the bill into law on January 10, 1998.)

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:

a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

There were no known political killings by government agents. In some instances the line between politically motivated killing and criminal activities was difficult to distinguish. The Government's inability to stem economic decline and check the growth of violent, organized criminal activity had major repercussions. Politicians and politically-connected businessmen continued to be the victims--whether through killing or kidnaping--of organized criminal groups, aided in a few cases, either actively or passively, by corrupt officials.

During the year a member of the town council in Yevpatoriya, the regional property board director, and a governor in Razoolnensky district were killed. Police discovered that the governor's murder was ordered by the chairman of the district council's law and order commission. In April a director of the large steel plant in Olchivsk, Donetsk Oblast, narrowly avoided a bomb explosion in his hotel room. The mayor of Odesa claimed that gunmen, who were overpowered by police in an apartment facing the city hall in August, had planned to kill him.

The number of contract killings of members of the business community, often managers of state-owned enterprises, remained high, especially in the Crimea and Donetsk regions. Politicians were also targeted because of their influence over state-owned enterprises. In September the Crimean Deputy Minister for Tourism and Resorts was killed by a gunman. In December Arkadiy Tabachnyk of Odesa, a prominent businessman with very high political connections, and his bodyguard were also killed by a gunman. Also in December a bomb killed one nurse and injured several other persons in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Simferopol in an assassination attempt on a local Crimean businessman with criminal connections. There have been no arrests in these cases. As of August there were 73 contract murders; in all of 1996 there were 157 contract murders.

Pervasive organized crime and contract killings have been particularly rampant in the Donetsk region and Crimea. The undermining of governmental authority was particularly serious in Crimea. The Kiev central government in many matters exerts little institutional control over the peninsula, and the Crimean authorities, including members of the executive bodies and the legislature, are widely alleged to be compromised by ties to organized criminal elements. According to police reports, 51 local council deputies are linked to the organized criminal groups, including 11 of 49 members of the city council in Simferopol. Four local deputies were killed last year. The Prosecutor's Office opened five criminal cases against local deputies, including a member of the Crimean legislature. While recognizing the worsening crime scene, in 1996 the new Crimean police leadership claimed to have solved 18 of 36 contract murders and to have detained over 109 criminal leaders, with some 30 more detained in 1997. However, police leadership complains that loopholes in the existing criminal law allow criminal leaders to evade punishment in most cases. In 1996 some 1,000 Crimean policemen, including senior officers, were fired, and over 1000 were disciplined.

The 1996 alleged assassination attempt on the then-prime minister, Pavlo Lazarenko, whose car reportedly barely escaped a bomb explosion, and the killing of Rada deputy and business magnate, Yevhen Scherban, remain unsolved. The 1996 attempt on the mayor of Sevastopol remains unresolved.

b. Disappearance

There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.

The alleged kidnaping in 1996 of the former speaker of the Crimean legislature remains unsolved.

The January 1994 disappearance of Myhailo Boichyshyn, a prominent leader of the Popular Movement of Ukraine (RUKH), remains unsolved.

c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

The Constitution prohibits torture; however, police and prison officials regularly beat detainees and prisoners. Amnesty International in Ukraine reports that riot police beat and torture prisoners during their regular training exercises at jails. In 1996 the human rights group reported about 20 examples of such mistreatment. There is no effective mechanism for registering complaints about mistreatment or for obtaining redress. The human rights ombudsman required by the new Constitution may provide such a mechanism once it is established. The Government made no known efforts during the year to end the practice or to punish officials who committed or abetted such abuses. However, after the 1996 death of a suspect in the Security Service detention center (SBU) in Lviv, who was allegedly beaten to death by guards, the SBU leadership closed the facility and fired 36 of its 49 personnel. There were no developments in the case of a member of Parliament from Kiev, Myroslav Horbatyuk (who was placed in an intensive care unit after a brutal assault), and a former parliamentarian from Zaporizhzhia, Victor Slesarenko (whose car was blown up). They had claimed that violent attacks against them were linked to their investigations into high-level corruption in the Government. The Government has not yet announced the results of its investigations of these allegations.

Beating of recruits by senior conscripts, sometimes resulting in death or suicide of the young soldiers, remains common in the army, especially in the notoriously violent penal units. Police corruption remains a serious problem.

Conditions in pretrial detention facilities routinely fail to meet minimum international standards. Inmates are sometimes held in investigative isolation for extended periods and subjected to intimidation and mistreatment by jail guards and other inmates. Overcrowding is common in the pretrial and investigative detention centers. Prison overcrowding led the Government to release over 20,000 convicts under a mass amnesty, including some convicted of serious, violent crime.

Prison conditions are poor. Despite government efforts to maintain minimum international standards in the prisons for convicted prisoners, the worsening economic situation led to a further deterioration of these facilities. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and inadequate medical care are all common problems in the prisons.

The incidence of murders by inmates and forced suicides in prisons is reportedly high. In 1996 there were 84 suicides in jails. No official statistics for prison murders are available.

The Government generally permits prison visits by human rights monitors.

d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

The law provides that authorities may detain a person suspected of a crime for 3 days without a warrant. The Constitution provides that only the courts may issue arrest warrants, but under its transitional provisions the Prosecutor's Office retains the authority to issue arrest and search warrants until 2001. An arrest order must be issued if the period of detention exceeds 3 days. The maximum period of detention after charges have been filed is 18 months, but the law does not limit the aggregate time of detention before and during the trial. The law permits citizens to contest an arrest in court or appeal to the prosecutor.

By law a trial must begin no later than 3 weeks after the defendant is indicted. This requirement is frequently not met by the overburdened court system, where months may pass before a defendant is finally brought to trial.

The law stipulates that a defense attorney be provided without charge to the indigent from the moment of detention or the filing of charges, whichever comes first. There are insufficient numbers of defense attorneys to protect suspects from unlawful, lengthy imprisonment under extremely poor conditions. Although the concept of providing attorneys from the state system remains in principle, public attorneys often refuse to defend indigents for the low government fee. While in custody a suspect or a prisoner is allowed by law to talk with a lawyer in private; however, human rights groups report that the client-attorney privilege is occasionally denied by prison or investigative officials. To protect the defendant, each investigative file must contain a document signed by the defendant attesting that the charges against him, his right to an attorney, and his right not to give evidence against himself or his relatives, have been explained to him,. An appeals court may dismiss a conviction or order a new trial if this document is missing. As defendants increasingly became aware of their rights, they insisted on observance of these procedures. However, many persons still were unaware of these safeguards.

Exile as a punishment no longer exists in the law, and the Government observes this prohibition.

According to 1996 Interior Ministry statistics, of a total prison population of 223,000 persons, approximately 45,000 were held in pretrial detention.

There were no reports of political detainees.

A group of Parliamentarians described as political persecution the detention and prosecution on criminal charges of hooliganism of a Parliamentary aide and member of the Ukrainian Radical Nationalist Group, UNA-UNSO, who wrote graffiti criticizing Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko during his 1997 visit to Kiev.

e. Denial of Fair Public Trial

The Constitution provides for the establishment of an independent judiciary; however, the judiciary remains subject to political interference.

The existing court system is divided into courts of general jurisdiction and arbitration, or commercial, courts. The courts of general jurisdiction are divided into criminal and civil sections. The courts are organized on three levels: rayon (district or people's) courts, oblast (regional) courts, and the Supreme Court. There are 742 district and city courts, 27 regional courts, 26 military courts, and one interregional court. All may act as a court of first instance depending on the nature and seriousness of the crime. A case heard in the first instance by the Supreme Court, therefore, may not be appealed or overruled. Military courts only handle cases involving military personnel.

There are no clear rules to determine which court first hears a case.

The 1996 Constitution provides for a restructuring of the judiciary. Justice is to be administered by the Constitutional Court and general jurisdiction courts with the Supreme Court at their head. The judicial system is also to include local and appeals courts, as well as special courts to be established by future legislation, headed by their respective highest courts. However, pending formation of the new judicial system, the old system remains in place, including the present Supreme and Supreme Arbitration Court, for a maximum period of 5 years, until 2001.

The Parliament, the President, and the Congress of Judges each appoint 6 of the Constitutional Court's 18 members for 9-year terms. The Court Chairman is elected for a 3-year term by the 18 justices from among their own ranks. As of September, all positions on the court were filled. The Constitutional Court is the ultimate interpreter of legislation and the Constitution. It determines the constitutionality of legislation, of presidential edicts, of cabinet acts, and of acts of the Crimean Autonomous Republic. The Constitutional Court hears cases at the request of the President, at least 45 Parliamentarians, the Supreme Court, the Parliament's Human Rights Ombudsman, or the Crimean legislature. While under the Constitution a citizen has the right to apply to any court, citizens can apply to the Constitutional court only through the Human Rights Ombudsman.

The Constitution strengthens the courts by establishing the principle of judicial review. During the first half of the year, citizens filed over 6,000 civil suits against the Government, compared with 8,000 suits in 1996. Most of these cases were disputes over unpaid wages. According to the Supreme Court, citizens win most such cases, although virtually no verdicts are enforced.

The Criminal Procedures Code allows the following officials to suspend court decisions: Prosecutor General (or his Deputies), Head of the Supreme Court (or his deputies), and heads of the regional courts and Kiev municipal court (or their deputies). Such suspension is subject to the approval by the presidium of the regional court (respectively, Kiev municipal court and Supreme Court). It is believed that this system induces interference, manipulation and corruption.

Prosecutors, like the courts, are also organized into offices at the rayon, oblast, and republic levels. They are ultimately responsible to the Prosecutor General, who is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Parliament for a 5-year term. Regional and district prosecutors are appointed by the Prosecutor General. Prosecutors and defense attorneys by law have equal status before the courts. In practice, however, prosecutors still are very influential because court proceedings are not conducted in an adversarial manner and the procuracy, in its pretrial investigative function, often acts in effect as a grand jury. A prosecutor directs all investigations of the Ministry of Internal affairs and the SBU, or he may use the investigative resources of his office. The Constitution considerably curtails the prosecutor's authority, limiting it to prosecution, representing the public interest in court, oversight of investigations, and implementation of court decisions. However, the transitional provisions of the Constitution allow the Prosecutor's Office to continue to conduct investigations and oversee general observance of the law, pending the formation of the new pretrial investigation system. In November the Constitutional Court interpreted the Procuracy Law, ruling that citizens can dispute prosecutors' decisions in court.

Judges are appointed by the President for an initial 5-year term, after which they are subject to parliamentary approval for lifetime tenure. In accordance with the Constitution, the Parliament began appointing judges to lifetime tenure positions, reappointing most currently serving judges, with few exceptions. The Parliament awarded lifetime tenure to 433 of the 4,719 judges whose terms were due to expire in 1997. Over 350 of 389 judges of the arbitration (commercial) courts already had lifetime tenure under the 1991 Arbitration Court Law. Judges are recommended for nomination by local qualification commissions to the Supreme Qualification Commission. Judges are selected for nomination or dismissal by the Supreme Judicial Council, which is also authorized to discipline judges-including judges of the Supreme Court and Supreme Special Courts-and prosecutors for violations of the law. The Supreme Judicial Council consists of 20 members nominated by the three branches of government and by professional associations from the law and procuracy sectors. It also includes the Chairman of the Supreme Court, the Minister of Justice, and the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. The press reported only one case of a judge being convicted for bribery. The Luhansk regional court gave a suspended sentence of 4 years to a judge in the town of Krasnodon for accepting a bribe of $1,000. The Supreme Court upheld the sentence.

Many judges and prosecutors were appointed during the Soviet era, when political influence pervaded the criminal justice system. Human rights lawyers claim that the judiciary is not free from government influence, particularly at the regional and local levels. Judges, prosecutors, and other court officials appear to remain closely attuned to local government interests. Organized crime elements are also widely alleged to influence court decisions. Although statistics are not available, the Justice Ministry reports that this year some judges have been disciplined and dismissed. However, since independence only four judges have been prosecuted on criminal charges for bribery, with no such cases resulting in a trial. No higher court judge has been disciplined to date. Criminal elements routinely use intimidation to induce victims and witnesses to withdraw or change their testimony. The law requires that a special police unit protect judges, witnesses, defendants, and their relatives. However, it has not yet been formed, and trial participants are vulnerable to pressure.

Human rights groups contend that judicial processes are sometimes affected by the biases of expert advisers, who answer to government investigative and prosecutorial bodies.

The judiciary is inefficient and lacks sufficient staff and funds. The funds earmarked for the judiciary in the budget are barely enough to pay the judges and the staff of the courts. According to the Justice Ministry, some 37 percent of the courts are inadequately housed. The authority of the judicial system is also undermined by a poor record of compliance with court decisions in civil and economic cases, while the provisions for criminal punishment under the criminal code for noncompliance with a court decision are rarely used.

The 1993 In July the Cabinet decided to form police protection units to provide security for judges, defendants and their relatives.

Under the existing court system, cases are decided by judges who sit singly (in principle with two public assessors), or in groups of three for more serious cases. As it has become increasingly difficult to find unpaid public assessors willing to attend a trial, most cases are tried by a single judge. The Constitution provides for public, adversarial trials, including a judge (or group of judges), public assessors, state prosecutor, defense and jury (if required by the law).

The Constitution includes procedural provisions to ensure a fair trial, including the right of a suspect or witness to refuse to testify against himself or his relatives. However, pending passage of legislation to implement the Constitution's provisions, a largely Soviet-era criminal justice system remains in place. While the defendant is presumed innocent, conviction rates have changed little since the Soviet era. Nearly all completed cases result in convictions. Judges frequently send cases unlikely to end in convictions back to the Prosecutor's Office for "additional investigation." Such cases may then be dropped or closed. It is commonly believed that suspects frequently bribe court officials to drop charges before cases go to trial, or to lessen or commute a sentence. Consequently, conviction rates are somewhat misleading. However, as courts have become more independent, the number of acquittals has increased each year. In May the Supreme Court Chairman made an unprecedented public warning to investigative agencies, particularly the police, against interfering in court decisions.

Complicated cases can take years to go to trial. In the interim, defendants wait in pretrial detention. The 1996 Amendment to the Criminal Procedures Code provides for bail, but to date it rarely has been used.

According to Interior Ministry statistics, in comparison with past years, greater numbers of convicted defendants are receiving some form of suspended sentence, in large part due to prison overcrowding. In 1996 about 138,000 persons received suspended sentences, while the prison population numbered approximately 223,000.

Current members of Parliament, members of local councils, and judges enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution unless the Parliament, the respective council, or the judiciary authority gives its consent to criminal proceedings. Consent is rarely given in practice.

There were no reports of political prisoners. A human rights group in Zaporizhzhya called Justice reported that its activist Stepan Shkarun was detained during the summer on charges of insulting a judge while attempting to expose corruption in the regional court. He alleged that the head of the regional court illegally received free gas from a haulage company in exchange for a favorable court ruling in a case involving the company's director. A human rights group claims that while he was in pre-trial detention in Dnipropetrovsk, Shkarun was beaten into signing a confession; he was released under amnesty a month later.

f. Arbitrary Interference With Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence

Although the Constitution requires that courts issue search warrants, this provision has not yet been implemented. During the transition period, prosecutors are issuing search warrants. The SBU, for reasons of national security, may conduct intrusive surveillance and searches without a warrant with the consent of the Prosecutor General. The Prosecutor General's Office oversees the SBU, but the extent to which it utilizes that authority to monitor SBU activities and to curb excesses by security officials is unknown. The Constitution provides citizens with the right to examine any dossier that the SBU has on them and to sue for physical or emotional damages incurred by an investigation. The procedure to implement and enforce this new right have not yet been established.

The remnants of Soviet control mechanisms survive in many guises. Militia personnel have the right to stop vehicles arbitrarily and need no probable cause to initiate extensive document checks and inspection of all parts of the vehicle. Citizens who have committed no violation, or only a minor one, often prefer to pay a bribe to avoid a time-consuming inspection. Police have the right to detain a person for up to 3 hours to verify identity. All internal passports contain a stamp indicating a citizen's residence and matrimonial status.

Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

a. Freedom of Speech and Press

The Constitution and a 1991 law provide for freedom of speech and of the press; however, the Government persistently attempts to control the press. The Government tolerates criticism on a selective basis. Many journalists practice self-censorship. The Government largely controls the broadcast media.

The print media, both independent and government-supported, demonstrate a tendency towards self-censorship on matters sensitive to the Government although this has been decreasing over time. The executive branch, through the Ministry of Press and Information, subsidizes the operations of some large-scale publications. The Ministry has warned some periodicals against fomenting ethnic tensions and conducting antistate propaganda and has applied to the Prosecutor's Office to open investigations into those newspapers. However, no newspapers are known to have been prosecuted as a result. Private newspapers have also been established and are free to function on a purely commercial basis. However, they practice self-censorship and are subject to various pressures such as control of access to affordable state-subsidized newsprint; dependence on political patrons who may facilitate financial support from the State Press Support Fund; close scrutiny from government officials, especially at the local level; and politically motivated visits by tax inspectors. In April the President issued a decree on support of the press that requires the Cabinet to draw up a list of publications needing government support, including those whose founders include central and local governments, public organizations, associations, unions, educational institutions, and newspaper employees. The journalistic community believes that this decree was intended to support loyal members of the press. The dependence of the subsidized and private press on the Government's patronage particularly inhibited criticism of the Government on the local level. Foreign-owned newspapers are permitted and foreign periodicals circulate freely.

The broadcast media remain largely under state ownership. They are managed by the State Committee on Television and Radio (Derzhteleradio), whose head, according to the new Constitution, is appointed by the President and confirmed by Parliament. The President and the Parliament each appoint half of the members to the regulatory board for broadcasting, the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting, which issues broadcasting licenses and allocates broadcasting time. The law entitles private and foreign companies to establish and operate their own transmission facilities, provided that they obtain a license from the National Council. A news program that covers domestic political developments, notably Vikna (Windows) has fended off attempts by Derzhteleradio to preview and revise the content of their programs. In April allegedly under pressure from the parliamentary leadership, the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council ordered the state-owned channel UT-2 to suspend the broadcasting of Pislyamova after it broadcast a report that was critical of the Communist regime in Cuba at the time of a Ukrainian parliamentary delegation's trip to Cuba. The program was suspended but was permitted to resume broadcasting a short time later, after public protests and the intervention of the President. In December, citing increasing political pressure, Pislyamova decided to cease broadcasting for the election period.

The Committee for Protection of State Secrets enjoys broadly defined powers over all media. According to journalists, it has not interfered with the practice of their craft. There is a comprehensive, specific regulation on state secrets whose publication is prohibited. In May the Cabinet adopted a regulation that further defined state secrets to include information on executions, the state of prisons, pretrial detention blocks, and centers for the forcible treatment of alcoholics. Article 125 of the C

Comrades

Long live the Revolution!

You Chechens will feel the light upon your face.

Comrades

as we took germany,poland,czechoslovakia,hungary romania, latvia, etc etc..

NEXT Chechnya!

finally the glorious Russian Federation will conquer the filthy capitalist USA!!!

I hope they drop the bomb soon,sick of these Muslim morons barking

Under the new Ukrainian Constitution adopted in 1996 the President, elected for a 5-year term, and a one-chamber Parliament (the Rada), elected for a 4-year term, share responsibility for governance. (Transitional provisions continue the current President's and Parliament's terms until October 1999, and March 1998, respectively.) President Leonid Kuchma was elected in 1994. The President appoints the Cabinet and controls government operations. Under the new Constitution the judiciary is funded as an independent branch, instead of through the Ministry of Justice. However, the court system remains subject to political interference.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the Ministry of Defense all have equal status and report to the President through the Cabinet. The heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense sit in the Cabinet of Ministers. In April the President established by decree the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). However, the NBI had not been fully organized by year's end; the Parliament refused to provide any funding for the NBI, pending the adoption a law formally establishing it. The chairmen of the SBU and the newly created NBI are also members of the Cabinet, but they are not cabinet ministers. The armed forces have largely remained outside politics. Although the SBU has not interfered in the political process, it can affect it through criminal investigations against politicians and influential businessmen. Reportedly, the Government has used government agencies, especially the Tax Inspectorate, to disrupt or eliminate the businesses of competitors and political opponents. Despite the Government's adoption of a sweeping anti-corruption program, the SBU, police, and Prosecutor's Office have drawn domestic and international criticism for their failure to take adequate action to curb institutional corruption and abuse in the Government. Many high profile corruption cases, which were opened earlier, have been dropped, ostensibly because of lack of incriminating evidence. Members of the security forces committed human rights abuses.

Ukraine is making a difficult transition from central planning to a market-based economy. According to official statistics, about half of the work force is formally employed in manufacturing, with the balance divided between services and agriculture, although in reality many industrial enterprises have reduced or stopped production. Exports are diversified and include metals, chemicals, sugar, and semi-finished goods. Annual per capita gross domestic product for 1997 was approximately $1,000. In 1996 Ukraine achieved a measure of macroeconomic stability for the first time since independence. Inflation, which at times had accelerated to hyperinflation, was 10 percent for 1997. The private sector has grown significantly and now represents a substantial portion of the economy, although growth in the unofficial shadow economy is not fully reflected in official government statistics. Nevertheless, the country remains in a serious economic crisis. Industrial output continues to decline, and shrinking revenue has left millions of employees unpaid for many months. The pace of reform was erratic during the year, particularly in the agricultural sector. Despite some progress on privatization and deregulation, investment remains at low levels, with many potential investors discouraged by onerous and arbitrary taxation and licensing practices.

Overall, Ukraine continued the process of building a law-based civil society. Reports of human rights violations remained at the same low level as in 1996. Problems continue in the unreformed legal and prison systems, and the army. Police and prison officials regularly beat detainees and prisoners; beating of conscripts is common in the army. The Government rarely punishes officials who commit such abuses. Prison conditions remain poor, and lengthy pretrial detention under poor conditions is a common problem. The judiciary is overburdened and lacks sufficient funding and staff. Long delays in trials are a problem. While progress has been made toward ensuring the independence of the judiciary, political interference continues to affect the judicial process. There are occasional government attempts to control the press and limit freedom of speech, and significant limits on freedom of association and on nonnative religious organizations. Laws governing political party organizations have the potential to limit human rights. Significant societal anti-Semitism, violence against women and children, as well as discrimination against women, and both ethnic and religious minorities, persist.

The efficacy of the 1996 Constitution and the safeguards that it provides for human rights depends on enabling legislation, most of which has not yet been passed. The power of the Constitutional Court remains untested. The Constitution's provision for a human rights ombudsman appointed by Parliament to assist citizens in defending their rights was first adopted on November 13. On December 5 the President vetoed the law, giving his requirements that the Ombudsman should not be a member of any political party and that he should be a professional lawyer. However, subsequently the Parliament incorporated most of the presidential proposals into the new version and adopted the law on December 23. (The President signed the bill into law on January 10, 1998.)

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:

a. Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

There were no known political killings by government agents. In some instances the line between politically motivated killing and criminal activities was difficult to distinguish. The Government's inability to stem economic decline and check the growth of violent, organized criminal activity had major repercussions. Politicians and politically-connected businessmen continued to be the victims--whether through killing or kidnaping--of organized criminal groups, aided in a few cases, either actively or passively, by corrupt officials.

During the year a member of the town council in Yevpatoriya, the regional property board director, and a governor in Razoolnensky district were killed. Police discovered that the governor's murder was ordered by the chairman of the district council's law and order commission. In April a director of the large steel plant in Olchivsk, Donetsk Oblast, narrowly avoided a bomb explosion in his hotel room. The mayor of Odesa claimed that gunmen, who were overpowered by police in an apartment facing the city hall in August, had planned to kill him.

The number of contract killings of members of the business community, often managers of state-owned enterprises, remained high, especially in the Crimea and Donetsk regions. Politicians were also targeted because of their influence over state-owned enterprises. In September the Crimean Deputy Minister for Tourism and Resorts was killed by a gunman. In December Arkadiy Tabachnyk of Odesa, a prominent businessman with very high political connections, and his bodyguard were also killed by a gunman. Also in December a bomb killed one nurse and injured several other persons in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Simferopol in an assassination attempt on a local Crimean businessman with criminal connections. There have been no arrests in these cases. As of August there were 73 contract murders; in all of 1996 there were 157 contract murders.

Pervasive organized crime and contract killings have been particularly rampant in the Donetsk region and Crimea. The undermining of governmental authority was particularly serious in Crimea. The Kiev central government in many matters exerts little institutional control over the peninsula, and the Crimean authorities, including members of the executive bodies and the legislature, are widely alleged to be compromised by ties to organized criminal elements. According to police reports, 51 local council deputies are linked to the organized criminal groups, including 11 of 49 members of the city council in Simferopol. Four local deputies were killed last year. The Prosecutor's Office opened five criminal cases against local deputies, including a member of the Crimean legislature. While recognizing the worsening crime scene, in 1996 the new Crimean police leadership claimed to have solved 18 of 36 contract murders and to have detained over 109 criminal leaders, with some 30 more detained in 1997. However, police leadership complains that loopholes in the existing criminal law allow criminal leaders to evade punishment in most cases. In 1996 some 1,000 Crimean policemen, including senior officers, were fired, and over 1000 were disciplined.

The 1996 alleged assassination attempt on the then-prime minister, Pavlo Lazarenko, whose car reportedly barely escaped a bomb explosion, and the killing of Rada deputy and business magnate, Yevhen Scherban, remain unsolved. The 1996 attempt on the mayor of Sevastopol remains unresolved.

b. Disappearance

There were no reports of politically motivated disappearances.

The alleged kidnaping in 1996 of the former speaker of the Crimean legislature remains unsolved.

The January 1994 disappearance of Myhailo Boichyshyn, a prominent leader of the Popular Movement of Ukraine (RUKH), remains unsolved.

c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment

The Constitution prohibits torture; however, police and prison officials regularly beat detainees and prisoners. Amnesty International in Ukraine reports that riot police beat and torture prisoners during their regular training exercises at jails. In 1996 the human rights group reported about 20 examples of such mistreatment. There is no effective mechanism for registering complaints about mistreatment or for obtaining redress. The human rights ombudsman required by the new Constitution may provide such a mechanism once it is established. The Government made no known efforts during the year to end the practice or to punish officials who committed or abetted such abuses. However, after the 1996 death of a suspect in the Security Service detention center (SBU) in Lviv, who was allegedly beaten to death by guards, the SBU leadership closed the facility and fired 36 of its 49 personnel. There were no developments in the case of a member of Parliament from Kiev, Myroslav Horbatyuk (who was placed in an intensive care unit after a brutal assault), and a former parliamentarian from Zaporizhzhia, Victor Slesarenko (whose car was blown up). They had claimed that violent attacks against them were linked to their investigations into high-level corruption in the Government. The Government has not yet announced the results of its investigations of these allegations.

Beating of recruits by senior conscripts, sometimes resulting in death or suicide of the young soldiers, remains common in the army, especially in the notoriously violent penal units. Police corruption remains a serious problem.

Conditions in pretrial detention facilities routinely fail to meet minimum international standards. Inmates are sometimes held in investigative isolation for extended periods and subjected to intimidation and mistreatment by jail guards and other inmates. Overcrowding is common in the pretrial and investigative detention centers. Prison overcrowding led the Government to release over 20,000 convicts under a mass amnesty, including some convicted of serious, violent crime.

Prison conditions are poor. Despite government efforts to maintain minimum international standards in the prisons for convicted prisoners, the worsening economic situation led to a further deterioration of these facilities. Overcrowding, poor sanitation, and inadequate medical care are all common problems in the prisons.

The incidence of murders by inmates and forced suicides in prisons is reportedly high. In 1996 there were 84 suicides in jails. No official statistics for prison murders are available.

The Government generally permits prison visits by human rights monitors.

d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

The law provides that authorities may detain a person suspected of a crime for 3 days without a warrant. The Constitution provides that only the courts may issue arrest warrants, but under its transitional provisions the Prosecutor's Office retains the authority to issue arrest and search warrants until 2001. An arrest order must be issued if the period of detention exceeds 3 days. The maximum period of detention after charges have been filed is 18 months, but the law does not limit the aggregate time of detention before and during the trial. The law permits citizens to contest an arrest in court or appeal to the prosecutor.

By law a trial must begin no later than 3 weeks after the defendant is indicted. This requirement is frequently not met by the overburdened court system, where months may pass before a defendant is finally brought to trial.

The law stipulates that a defense attorney be provided without charge to the indigent from the moment of detention or the filing of charges, whichever comes first. There are insufficient numbers of defense attorneys to protect suspects from unlawful, lengthy imprisonment under extremely poor conditions. Although the concept of providing attorneys from the state system remains in principle, public attorneys often refuse to defend indigents for the low government fee. While in custody a suspect or a prisoner is allowed by law to talk with a lawyer in private; however, human rights groups report that the client-attorney privilege is occasionally denied by prison or investigative officials. To protect the defendant, each investigative file must contain a document signed by the defendant attesting that the charges against him, his right to an attorney, and his right not to give evidence against himself or his relatives, have been explained to him,. An appeals court may dismiss a conviction or order a new trial if this document is missing. As defendants increasingly became aware of their rights, they insisted on observance of these procedures. However, many persons still were unaware of these safeguards.

Exile as a punishment no longer exists in the law, and the Government observes this prohibition.

According to 1996 Interior Ministry statistics, of a total prison population of 223,000 persons, approximately 45,000 were held in pretrial detention.

There were no reports of political detainees.

A group of Parliamentarians described as political persecution the detention and prosecution on criminal charges of hooliganism of a Parliamentary aide and member of the Ukrainian Radical Nationalist Group, UNA-UNSO, who wrote graffiti criticizing Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko during his 1997 visit to Kiev.

e. Denial of Fair Public Trial

The Constitution provides for the establishment of an independent judiciary; however, the judiciary remains subject to political interference.

The existing court system is divided into courts of general jurisdiction and arbitration, or commercial, courts. The courts of general jurisdiction are divided into criminal and civil sections. The courts are organized on three levels: rayon (district or people's) courts, oblast (regional) courts, and the Supreme Court. There are 742 district and city courts, 27 regional courts, 26 military courts, and one interregional court. All may act as a court of first instance depending on the nature and seriousness of the crime. A case heard in the first instance by the Supreme Court, therefore, may not be appealed or overruled. Military courts only handle cases involving military personnel.

There are no clear rules to determine which court first hears a case.

The 1996 Constitution provides for a restructuring of the judiciary. Justice is to be administered by the Constitutional Court and general jurisdiction courts with the Supreme Court at their head. The judicial system is also to include local and appeals courts, as well as special courts to be established by future legislation, headed by their respective highest courts. However, pending formation of the new judicial system, the old system remains in place, including the present Supreme and Supreme Arbitration Court, for a maximum period of 5 years, until 2001.

The Parliament, the President, and the Congress of Judges each appoint 6 of the Constitutional Court's 18 members for 9-year terms. The Court Chairman is elected for a 3-year term by the 18 justices from among their own ranks. As of September, all positions on the court were filled. The Constitutional Court is the ultimate interpreter of legislation and the Constitution. It determines the constitutionality of legislation, of presidential edicts, of cabinet acts, and of acts of the Crimean Autonomous Republic. The Constitutional Court hears cases at the request of the President, at least 45 Parliamentarians, the Supreme Court, the Parliament's Human Rights Ombudsman, or the Crimean legislature. While under the Constitution a citizen has the right to apply to any court, citizens can apply to the Constitutional court only through the Human Rights Ombudsman.

The Constitution strengthens the courts by establishing the principle of judicial review. During the first half of the year, citizens filed over 6,000 civil suits against the Government, compared with 8,000 suits in 1996. Most of these cases were disputes over unpaid wages. According to the Supreme Court, citizens win most such cases, although virtually no verdicts are enforced.

The Criminal Procedures Code allows the following officials to suspend court decisions: Prosecutor General (or his Deputies), Head of the Supreme Court (or his deputies), and heads of the regional courts and Kiev municipal court (or their deputies). Such suspension is subject to the approval by the presidium of the regional court (respectively, Kiev municipal court and Supreme Court). It is believed that this system induces interference, manipulation and corruption.

Prosecutors, like the courts, are also organized into offices at the rayon, oblast, and republic levels. They are ultimately responsible to the Prosecutor General, who is appointed by the President and confirmed by the Parliament for a 5-year term. Regional and district prosecutors are appointed by the Prosecutor General. Prosecutors and defense attorneys by law have equal status before the courts. In practice, however, prosecutors still are very influential because court proceedings are not conducted in an adversarial manner and the procuracy, in its pretrial investigative function, often acts in effect as a grand jury. A prosecutor directs all investigations of the Ministry of Internal affairs and the SBU, or he may use the investigative resources of his office. The Constitution considerably curtails the prosecutor's authority, limiting it to prosecution, representing the public interest in court, oversight of investigations, and implementation of court decisions. However, the transitional provisions of the Constitution allow the Prosecutor's Office to continue to conduct investigations and oversee general observance of the law, pending the formation of the new pretrial investigation system. In November the Constitutional Court interpreted the Procuracy Law, ruling that citizens can dispute prosecutors' decisions in court.

Judges are appointed by the President for an initial 5-year term, after which they are subject to parliamentary approval for lifetime tenure. In accordance with the Constitution, the Parliament began appointing judges to lifetime tenure positions, reappointing most currently serving judges, with few exceptions. The Parliament awarded lifetime tenure to 433 of the 4,719 judges whose terms were due to expire in 1997. Over 350 of 389 judges of the arbitration (commercial) courts already had lifetime tenure under the 1991 Arbitration Court Law. Judges are recommended for nomination by local qualification commissions to the Supreme Qualification Commission. Judges are selected for nomination or dismissal by the Supreme Judicial Council, which is also authorized to discipline judges-including judges of the Supreme Court and Supreme Special Courts-and prosecutors for violations of the law. The Supreme Judicial Council consists of 20 members nominated by the three branches of government and by professional associations from the law and procuracy sectors. It also includes the Chairman of the Supreme Court, the Minister of Justice, and the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. The press reported only one case of a judge being convicted for bribery. The Luhansk regional court gave a suspended sentence of 4 years to a judge in the town of Krasnodon for accepting a bribe of $1,000. The Supreme Court upheld the sentence.

Many judges and prosecutors were appointed during the Soviet era, when political influence pervaded the criminal justice system. Human rights lawyers claim that the judiciary is not free from government influence, particularly at the regional and local levels. Judges, prosecutors, and other court officials appear to remain closely attuned to local government interests. Organized crime elements are also widely alleged to influence court decisions. Although statistics are not available, the Justice Ministry reports that this year some judges have been disciplined and dismissed. However, since independence only four judges have been prosecuted on criminal charges for bribery, with no such cases resulting in a trial. No higher court judge has been disciplined to date. Criminal elements routinely use intimidation to induce victims and witnesses to withdraw or change their testimony. The law requires that a special police unit protect judges, witnesses, defendants, and their relatives. However, it has not yet been formed, and trial participants are vulnerable to pressure.

Human rights groups contend that judicial processes are sometimes affected by the biases of expert advisers, who answer to government investigative and prosecutorial bodies.

The judiciary is inefficient and lacks sufficient staff and funds. The funds earmarked for the judiciary in the budget are barely enough to pay the judges and the staff of the courts. According to the Justice Ministry, some 37 percent of the courts are inadequately housed. The authority of the judicial system is also undermined by a poor record of compliance with court decisions in civil and economic cases, while the provisions for criminal punishment under the criminal code for noncompliance with a court decision are rarely used.

The 1993 In July the Cabinet decided to form police protection units to provide security for judges, defendants and their relatives.

Under the existing court system, cases are decided by judges who sit singly (in principle with two public assessors), or in groups of three for more serious cases. As it has become increasingly difficult to find unpaid public assessors willing to attend a trial, most cases are tried by a single judge. The Constitution provides for public, adversarial trials, including a judge (or group of judges), public assessors, state prosecutor, defense and jury (if required by the law).

The Constitution includes procedural provisions to ensure a fair trial, including the right of a suspect or witness to refuse to testify against himself or his relatives. However, pending passage of legislation to implement the Constitution's provisions, a largely Soviet-era criminal justice system remains in place. While the defendant is presumed innocent, conviction rates have changed little since the Soviet era. Nearly all completed cases result in convictions. Judges frequently send cases unlikely to end in convictions back to the Prosecutor's Office for "additional investigation." Such cases may then be dropped or closed. It is commonly believed that suspects frequently bribe court officials to drop charges before cases go to trial, or to lessen or commute a sentence. Consequently, conviction rates are somewhat misleading. However, as courts have become more independent, the number of acquittals has increased each year. In May the Supreme Court Chairman made an unprecedented public warning to investigative agencies, particularly the police, against interfering in court decisions.

Complicated cases can take years to go to trial. In the interim, defendants wait in pretrial detention. The 1996 Amendment to the Criminal Procedures Code provides for bail, but to date it rarely has been used.

According to Interior Ministry statistics, in comparison with past years, greater numbers of convicted defendants are receiving some form of suspended sentence, in large part due to prison overcrowding. In 1996 about 138,000 persons received suspended sentences, while the prison population numbered approximately 223,000.

Current members of Parliament, members of local councils, and judges enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution unless the Parliament, the respective council, or the judiciary authority gives its consent to criminal proceedings. Consent is rarely given in practice.

There were no reports of political prisoners. A human rights group in Zaporizhzhya called Justice reported that its activist Stepan Shkarun was detained during the summer on charges of insulting a judge while attempting to expose corruption in the regional court. He alleged that the head of the regional court illegally received free gas from a haulage company in exchange for a favorable court ruling in a case involving the company's director. A human rights group claims that while he was in pre-trial detention in Dnipropetrovsk, Shkarun was beaten into signing a confession; he was released under amnesty a month later.

f. Arbitrary Interference With Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence

Although the Constitution requires that courts issue search warrants, this provision has not yet been implemented. During the transition period, prosecutors are issuing search warrants. The SBU, for reasons of national security, may conduct intrusive surveillance and searches without a warrant with the consent of the Prosecutor General. The Prosecutor General's Office oversees the SBU, but the extent to which it utilizes that authority to monitor SBU activities and to curb excesses by security officials is unknown. The Constitution provides citizens with the right to examine any dossier that the SBU has on them and to sue for physical or emotional damages incurred by an investigation. The procedure to implement and enforce this new right have not yet been established.

The remnants of Soviet control mechanisms survive in many guises. Militia personnel have the right to stop vehicles arbitrarily and need no probable cause to initiate extensive document checks and inspection of all parts of the vehicle. Citizens who have committed no violation, or only a minor one, often prefer to pay a bribe to avoid a time-consuming inspection. Police have the right to detain a person for up to 3 hours to verify identity. All internal passports contain a stamp indicating a citizen's residence and matrimonial status.

Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

a. Freedom of Speech and Press

The Constitution and a 1991 law provide for freedom of speech and of the press; however, the Government persistently attempts to control the press. The Government tolerates criticism on a selective basis. Many journalists practice self-censorship. The Government largely controls the broadcast media.

The print media, both independent and government-supported, demonstrate a tendency towards self-censorship on matters sensitive to the Government although this has been decreasing over time. The executive branch, through the Ministry of Press and Information, subsidizes the operations of some large-scale publications. The Ministry has warned some periodicals against fomenting ethnic tensions and conducting antistate propaganda and has applied to the Prosecutor's Office to open investigations into those newspapers. However, no newspapers are known to have been prosecuted as a result. Private newspapers have also been established and are free to function on a purely commercial basis. However, they practice self-censorship and are subject to various pressures such as control of access to affordable state-subsidized newsprint; dependence on political patrons who may facilitate financial support from the State Press Support Fund; close scrutiny from government officials, especially at the local level; and politically motivated visits by tax inspectors. In April the President issued a decree on support of the press that requires the Cabinet to draw up a list of publications needing government support, including those whose founders include central and local governments, public organizations, associations, unions, educational institutions, and newspaper employees. The journalistic community believes that this decree was intended to support loyal members of the press. The dependence of the subsidized and private press on the Government's patronage particularly inhibited criticism of the Government on the local level. Foreign-owned newspapers are permitted and foreign periodicals circulate freely.

The broadcast media remain largely under state ownership. They are managed by the State Committee on Television and Radio (Derzhteleradio), whose head, according to the new Constitution, is appointed by the President and confirmed by Parliament. The President and the Parliament each appoint half of the members to the regulatory board for broadcasting, the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting, which issues broadcasting licenses and allocates broadcasting time. The law entitles private and foreign companies to establish and operate their own transmission facilities, provided that they obtain a license from the National Council. A news program that covers domestic political developments, notably Vikna (Windows) has fended off attempts by Derzhteleradio to preview and revise the content of their programs. In April allegedly under pressure from the parliamentary leadership, the National Television and Radio Broadcasting Council ordered the state-owned channel UT-2 to suspend the broadcasting of Pislyamova after it broadcast a report that was critical of the Communist regime in Cuba at the time of a Ukrainian parliamentary delegation's trip to Cuba. The program was suspended but was permitted to resume broadcasting a short time later, after public protests and the intervention of the President. In December, citing increasing political pressure, Pislyamova decided to cease broadcasting for the election period.

The Committee for Protection of State Secrets enjoys broadly defined powers over all media. According to journalists, it has not interfered with the practice of their craft. There is a comprehensive, specific regulation on state secrets whose publication is prohibited. In May the Cabinet adopted a regulation that further defined state secrets to include information on executions, the state of prisons, pretrial detention blocks, and centers for the forcible treatment of alcoholics. Article 125 of the Criminal Code prescribes imprisonment of up to 5 years for libel. There is no known separate regulation regarding public officials (except for the President). A criminal case was opened against Crimean journalist Tatyana Korobova on charges of libeling Crimean parliamentarian Lev Mirimskiy who objected to her writing about his criminal connections. Article 7 of the Civil Code allows anyone, including public officials, to sue for damages if circulated information, including a publication, is untrue or if it insults a person's honor or dignity. Journalists complain that the law is biased against them because it does not limit damages.

An editor of the newspaper Opositsiya, Ivan Makar, was given a 2-year suspended sentence in 1996 for libeling the President and his staff. Although he appealed the court decision, this year the higher court confirmed the sentence. The newspaper was closed by order of a Kiev court for publishing caricatures of the President and his staff. Its equipment was confiscated.

Reporting on organized crime and corruption in the Government, including misconduct by selected high-ranking cabinet and administration officials, is becoming increasingly bold. Journalists contend that they have been subjected to threats, including

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