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 Former prime minister of the Ukraine,  Yulia Tymoshenko, is under arrest facing charges of tax evasion. Prior to EURO 2012 there were reports that she had been beaten. The Ukraine has a bad record of human rights and animal welfare. It would appear to be a harsh society. 

Many EU leaders were outraged when Yulia was beaten and accordingly countries such as Germany and the UK insisted that they would boycott EURO 2012 as a protest. This became a protest as long as the national teams were not playing in the country of joint host nation Poland.   


English Ministers no doubt felt safe expressing they would follow such a ban, by assuming that England would be on their way home from the competition pretty quickly. As it was England survived to the quarter finals. Yesterday they lost on penalties to a superior football team, Italy and it was problem solved for English Ministers.

Last Friday an extremely pleased German leader, Angela Merkel, was seen cheering her national side on from the football ground where they were playing. It was in Poland. They beat Greece 4-2 stamping their authority on the game. The German squad are expected to go all the way in this competition  which could leave Merkel in a quandary. Sooner or later she will have to decide if the German boycott of EURO 2012 in the Ukraine will stand.

The Ukraine has put a smiling happy face on for football fans. Worries about fighting local fans and extremism appear to have been resolved. Of course they must simply have been swept under the carpet. These problems were far too big to be resolved easily.

Here at TEK and our sister site Where But The UK we have boycotted reporting on EURO 2012 football matches. Our stand has been made in protest of the mass killings of street dogs and cats. Many have been cruelly killed, some being burnt whilst still alive. Charitable intervention was trying to run a capture, neuter, free campaign in the Ukraine but this has been halted. This means that the killings have begun once more.

Look at the attached video regarding street children in the Ukraine and you can see that country has a lot of problems to solve.

Today June 25, 2012, the Ukraine has attempted to hide more of its dirty laundry. The trial of Yulia Tymeshenko has been postponed until mid July. The Ukrainian authorities are hoping this will limit the bad publicity they have been receiving. The trial will recommence conveniently on July 10, 2012. Yulia is to undergo a medical assessment to see if she is fit enough to stand trial.

OPINION: EU leaders were wrong to say that they would boycott EURO 2012 as a protest and then to water this down to just games played in Poland. Will EU ministers make a stand against the final matches played in the Ukraine? 

If they do not it should tell the world what there are priorities and how dishonourable they are too.

You can find related reading on the trial here

Tags: Yulia Tymeshenko trial adjourned, Orange revolution, Yulia Tymeshenko, EURO 2012 boycott, ministers boycott EURO 2012, Urainke killing dogs and cats, UNICEF, Poland matches, football

 
 
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Ukraine and Poland are hosting the UEFA Football Championships in 2012. The event kicks off, literally, on June 8 in Warsaw, Poland.. On the face of it this is all good news for football fans in the Ukraine and Poland and for the countries as a whole. An increase in visitors and the money which they spend is good news, isn't it?

Well in these two countries it may not be.

We recently published a report from PETA regarding the killing of dogs in the Ukraine. According to PETA, "Did you know that in Ukraine, dogs are being shot or poisoned and left to endure agonizing deaths? Watch the new PETA video to see the shocking animal abuse that the Ukrainian government is trying to hide from the rest of the world.

The 2012 European Football Championship will begin next month, and host countries Poland and Ukraine are busily preparing for the games. In Ukraine, this preparation includes a barbaric attempt to purge the streets of homeless animals in order to keep the misery of abandoned and neglected dogs out of the public eye.

While the clearest solution to animal overpopulation is to promote spay-and-neuter initiatives, homeless animals in Ukraine are being caught and then shot or poisoned and thrown into mass graves or crematoriums to be burned."

An email from a concerned animal volunteer today, May 31, 2012, included an update. Elaine has been contacting mainstream news agencies in order to publicise this senseless and brutal killing. Here is what she wrote,

Dear Sir/s

The slaughtering of dogs and cats (mostly dogs and said to be in the many thousands) is still going on in the Ukraine but the
 emphasis lately seems to be on the racism of football fans in the Ukraine  and  Poland. I found this today, it is a Russian forum where they are asking for Russians to go into the Ukraine to finish the job off of  "cleaning the streets" and being paid. The translation is not ideal but obvious, You need to scroll down under countries, click on UKRAINE, and then the top topic "Comrades! Need Help with Euro-2012 http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http://vredy.org/&act=url 
 This is a new undercover video of the situation (shown below)
 It seems The People newspaper is the only British paper to have done a follow up on this massacre last month!!

So what can you do? Sign any petitions you can find online. Contact embassies and get the news out. Use Facebook, Twitter and other means online to make sure this terrible killing is not swept under the carpet. It must be stopped. A boycott of the football would be a good course of action but football fans may balk at that. However just how safe foreign fans will be in the Ukraine and Poland is debatable.

In recent days we have seen footage of police in the Ukraine wielding their own rough justice plus neo nazis threatening foreigners to stay away, especially if they are not white skinned. Ukrainian officials have hit back at allegations of racism but the evidence is there. Even Ukrainian Sex Shops are hoping for a boom in industry but it is worth noting that HIV rates in the Ukraine are the worst in Eastern Europe.

So visit the European football competition in Poland or the Ukraine and you could come back home with far more than you bargained for. UK BBC program Panorama aired earlier this week, showing a stark picture of football violence in the Ukraine but the authorities have promised to protect foreign visitors.

The Ukraine has a terrible human rights record. It needs the UEFA champions to be a success. It needs the money. However unless it cleans up its act it will be far from a success.

For this blogger cleaning up the streets by killing dogs will not help their cause. It is unecessary, costly and cruel. Time is running out for the Ukraine and Poland. For too many dogs time has already run out. Stop the killing NOW.

Please sign the PETA petition here

Take Action campaign - petition here