Writer Lina Kostenko, singer Nina Matviyenko and politician Oleksandr Kuzhel have written an open letter to more than 20 of the most prominent and influential women of the world urging them to consider applying restrictive measures to Ukraine’s government leadership to make it more responsive to international appeals to release Yulia Tymoshenko and other political prisoners, according to the Official web site of Yulia Tymoshenko.
“We, the women of Ukraine, ask you and all prominent women of the world to help us in our common mission to defend our shared values of humanism and human rights. Help us to defend our liberty. Your personal support and counteraction by your governments and international human rights organizations to the countless violations of human rights in Ukraine is vitally important if we are to preserve even a shred of our freedoms,” they wrote.
They stressed that the unjust imprisonment of Yulia Tymoshenko is dangerous not only because, in doing so, Ukraine’s government has trampled on her rights and freedoms, but because this lawlessness has made every person in Ukraine vulnerable to the arbitrary whims of state officials.
“The leader of the opposition, former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko was groundlessly sentenced and brutally jailed for her previous political decisions while in office, decisions which in a true democracy are evaluated not by courts but by voters. Yulia Tymoshenko is the most successful female politician in the whole post-Soviet space. In the presidential elections 2010, which she narrowly lost to the current President, she was supported by over 12 million voters,” they wrote.
This letter will be sent to over 20 of the most famous and influential women of the world, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaite, Vice-President of the European Commission and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, President of Argentina Cristina Fernandez, President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff, President of Finland Tarja Halonen, U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, President of Liberia and 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (Burma) and 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and others. A separate letter will be send to the Council of Women World Leaders.
