Two more political parties, the Left Opposition bloc and Shariy’s Party, have been banned by a Ukrainian court. Both featured on the list of the 11 parties and political movements suspended in March by Ukraine’s national Security Council. Thursday’s announcement brings the total of outlawed parties to nine.
According to the statements by the Eighth Administrative Court of Appeal in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, all activities of the Left Opposition and Shariy’s Party have been prohibited, with “funds and other assets” set to be nationalized.
As Justice Minister Denis Malyuska explained, the two join other banned “pro-Russian” parties, activities of which were allegedly aimed at “undermining sovereignty” of Ukraine.
Explaining the court decision, the minister cited the law “On political parties” and amendments to it, adopted in the wake of the Russian military offensive, and simplified procedures to ban a political party for the duration of martial law.
“Materials on the illegality of political parties are provided to the Ministry of Justice by law enforcement agencies, and with these materials the Ministry files an administrative lawsuit to ban the political party. At the same time, the activity of a political party can be banned only by a court decision,” the ministry said in a statement.
READ MORE: Zelensky bans Ukrainian opposition partiesCourt hearings on Ukraine’s second-largest group ‘Opposition Platform – For Life,’ (OPZZh) have been postponed till June 20. The party was led by Viktor Medvedchuk, a businessman with alleged ties to Russia. Having previously been placed under house arrest in April of last year, the politician ended up in custody of Ukraine’s security services.
Shariy’s Party was founded in 2015 by a prominent blogger and critic of the Ukrainian government Anatoly Shariy. In May, the Ukrainian Security Service announced that Shariy had been detained by Spanish police in the result of a “a special operation.” He was later released on bai, as El Pais reported.
Shariy was granted political asylum in the EU by Lithuania in 2012. Back then, he said that he was fleeing persecution by the government of Viktor Yanukovich, whom the Western media accused of being pro-Russian.The Left Opposition coalition was formed in 2015 and included five political parties, including the Communist Party of Ukraine, as well as more than a dozen of public organizations.
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