We, the Ukrainians living in Europe, would like to draw your attention to the dramatic events that recently unfolded in Ukraine and to express solidarity with our relatives, friends and fellow compatriots, who are standing for European values of democracy, the rule of law and human rights  in Ukraine.

We would like to express our condemnation of the acts of the Ukrainian government and request your support to stop the violence and to resolve the conflict peacefully.

The recent unprecedented in the Ukrainian history use of force by the government against protesters, workers of media and civil societies, who are opposing the foreign and internal policy of the government, was accompanied by acts of selective justice and adoption of draconian laws of the 16 January 2014 violating constitutional rights and freedoms as well as international human rights obligations undertaken by Ukraine.

The numbers of victims of these recent acts of violence are shocking: many are dead or missing; hundreds were injured, tortured and subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment. All these gross acts of violence were conducted either directly by agents of the law enforcement or with their support.

We believe that continuing detention of protesters, many of whom were arrested without respect for due process, ill-treated and require urgent medical care, will lead to a further escalation of the conflict.

We request you to make use of all appropriate measures and mechanisms to stop the violence and systemic violation of human rights in order to proceed to a peaceful resolution of the current dramatic situation in Ukraine.

We call to introduce personalised targeted measures, such as freezing assets and property of the government officials, oligarchs and legislators who have a relation to the large-scale violations of human rights and the rule of law.

We ask for an independent international commission in order to duly investigate all these cases as well as to prevent and dissuade further use of violence against protesters.

We join the position of those who have already pointed out the necessity of introducing targeted sanctions against the Ukrainian government officials, as it was done by the European People’s party and by the American, Swedish, Lithuanian, Polish governments.