Author: ogden.matthew

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, in the midst of an extraordinary week in which she addressed three major “New Silk Road” conferences in Europe, began her speech to the Cultural-Business Dialogue in Baden-Baden April 25 in this way:

This the system of the BRICS-allied nations. The oligarchical system is dominated by the City of London financial imperialists and threatens global depopulation and thermonuclear war. Look at the situation in Yemen — the latest outbreak of genocidal wars backed by President Obama in the Mideast and North Africa — where the Red Cross reports that 12 million of the 20 million Yemenis, being bombed and completely blockaded by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the U.S. Navy, are “food-insecure” or lack any food at all. Most also now lack water, which cannot even be pumped with no fuel or electricity. This while many thousands are being drowned in the Mediterranean trying to flee to Europe from terror operations set in motion by Obama’s and Cameron’s wars in Libya, Syria, Iraq.

Then look at the large-scale, nearly instantaneous and fully collaborative response by China and India — the BRICS — to the disastrous Nepal earthquake, with combined deployments of army groupings from both BRICS powers for reconstruction, and the extraordinary Indian pledge of $10 billion for infrastructure reconstruction in one small country.

Compare Obama’s Trans-Pacific Partner (TPP) — such a Wall Street swindle that opposing it has become a touchstone for the next Presidential candidate of his own party — to the last ten years’ series of actual trade agreements between China, ASEAN countries, and South Korea. These have resulted in extraordinary growth in intra-Asian trade in goods over that decade.

Or consider the Bolivian vice president’s extraordinary commitment of that nation to “produce ideas, export ideas, create a society of knowledge and science.” Bolivia has moved immediately to the BRICS alliance, and has enjoyed among the most rapid economic growth in the continent.

We are fighting two fascist puppets of the London-centered oligarchical system in the United States, President Barack Obama and California Governor Jerry Brown. “Brownshirt” is facing resistance from municipalities and companies throughout California to his 25% mandatory water cut; now he has asked for legislative power to fine residents or businesses $10,000/day for not giving up their use of water — when there is an ocean full of water at the state’s shores. When LaRouchePAC has bluntly organized residents to “jail this Nazi,” its organizers have gotten a dynamic response from Californians.

Obama has stepped into a trap with his “TPP” intended attack on China and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which has turned into an attack on his own party on behalf of Wall Street. There is an internal revolt against him and the resources on the planet as a whole to defeat him. The time has come to force this puppet of London out of office.

In a letter to the editor published in the April 17 edition of the New York Times, Congressmen Walter Jones and Stephen Lynch lead off, citing the April 14 Times article about Bob Graham and the 28 pages:

“You write that intelligence officials claim that the contents of the 28 pages regarding a possible Saudi connection to the 9/11 attacks were explored and found to be unsubstantiated in a later review by the national commission. If that is the case, then what is the harm in releasing the pages? Yet they remain classified.

“Along with Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, we have introduced H.R. 14 to urge the president to declassify the 28 pages. We are working to make sure that the bill is introduced in the Senate and brought up in the House. The American people can ask their members of Congress to support this effort.”

Between the April 14 New York Times article on Sen. Graham’s quest for the declassification of the 28 pages, which also highlighted the Sarasota FBI coverup of the “Florida Connection” between leading Saudi families and the 9/11 hijackers, similar coverage in the New York Post, and the April 17 Tampa Bay Times op-ed by former Florida Sen. Graham, the momentum is continuing to build for the exposé of the Saudi role in the original 9/11 attacks, as well as the subsequent expansion of Al Qaeda and emergence of the Islamic State.

In his Tampa Bay Times op-ed, headlined “Did 9/11 Terrorists Get Outside Help?” Sen. Graham cited evidence of multiple Saudi links to the 19 hijackers, including a Los Angeles consular official, Saudi intelligence officers, and a wealth Saudi businessman, whose family fled Florida just prior to the attacks. Sen. Graham concluded that:

“Protection from culpability in the most heinous attack on the homeland of the United States since Pearl Harbor makes it reasonable for the Kingdom to assume it can act with impunity…. Saudi Arabia was the home of al-Qaeda and was instrumental in the creation of ISIS. These are the poisonous fruits that have grown from our refusal to sanction the Kingdom for what it did.”

He urged constituents to demand that Congress and President Obama release the full 28 pages.

Support H.Res. 14 to declassify the 28 pages on 9/11.

In a letter to the editor published in the April 17 edition of the New York Times, Congressmen Walter Jones and Stephen Lynch lead off, citing the April 14 Times article about Bob Graham and the 28 pages:

“You write that intelligence officials claim that the contents of the 28 pages regarding a possible Saudi connection to the 9/11 attacks were explored and found to be unsubstantiated in a later review by the national commission. If that is the case, then what is the harm in releasing the pages? Yet they remain classified.

“Along with Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, we have introduced H.R. 14 to urge the president to declassify the 28 pages. We are working to make sure that the bill is introduced in the Senate and brought up in the House. The American people can ask their members of Congress to support this effort.”

Between the April 14 New York Times article on Sen. Graham’s quest for the declassification of the 28 pages, which also highlighted the Sarasota FBI coverup of the “Florida Connection” between leading Saudi families and the 9/11 hijackers, similar coverage in the New York Post, and the April 17 Tampa Bay Times op-ed by former Florida Sen. Graham, the momentum is continuing to build for the exposé of the Saudi role in the original 9/11 attacks, as well as the subsequent expansion of Al Qaeda and emergence of the Islamic State.

In his Tampa Bay Times op-ed, headlined “Did 9/11 Terrorists Get Outside Help?” Sen. Graham cited evidence of multiple Saudi links to the 19 hijackers, including a Los Angeles consular official, Saudi intelligence officers, and a wealth Saudi businessman, whose family fled Florida just prior to the attacks. Sen. Graham concluded that:

“Protection from culpability in the most heinous attack on the homeland of the United States since Pearl Harbor makes it reasonable for the Kingdom to assume it can act with impunity…. Saudi Arabia was the home of al-Qaeda and was instrumental in the creation of ISIS. These are the poisonous fruits that have grown from our refusal to sanction the Kingdom for what it did.”

He urged constituents to demand that Congress and President Obama release the full 28 pages.

Support H.Res. 14 to declassify the 28 pages on 9/11.

In a letter to the editor published in the April 17 edition of the New York Times, Congressmen Walter Jones and Stephen Lynch lead off, citing the April 14 Times article about Bob Graham and the 28 pages:

“You write that intelligence officials claim that the contents of the 28 pages regarding a possible Saudi connection to the 9/11 attacks were explored and found to be unsubstantiated in a later review by the national commission. If that is the case, then what is the harm in releasing the pages? Yet they remain classified.

“Along with Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, we have introduced H.R. 14 to urge the president to declassify the 28 pages. We are working to make sure that the bill is introduced in the Senate and brought up in the House. The American people can ask their members of Congress to support this effort.”

Between the April 14 New York Times article on Sen. Graham’s quest for the declassification of the 28 pages, which also highlighted the Sarasota FBI coverup of the “Florida Connection” between leading Saudi families and the 9/11 hijackers, similar coverage in the New York Post, and the April 17 Tampa Bay Times op-ed by former Florida Sen. Graham, the momentum is continuing to build for the exposé of the Saudi role in the original 9/11 attacks, as well as the subsequent expansion of Al Qaeda and emergence of the Islamic State.

In his Tampa Bay Times op-ed, headlined “Did 9/11 Terrorists Get Outside Help?” Sen. Graham cited evidence of multiple Saudi links to the 19 hijackers, including a Los Angeles consular official, Saudi intelligence officers, and a wealth Saudi businessman, whose family fled Florida just prior to the attacks. Sen. Graham concluded that:

“Protection from culpability in the most heinous attack on the homeland of the United States since Pearl Harbor makes it reasonable for the Kingdom to assume it can act with impunity…. Saudi Arabia was the home of al-Qaeda and was instrumental in the creation of ISIS. These are the poisonous fruits that have grown from our refusal to sanction the Kingdom for what it did.”

He urged constituents to demand that Congress and President Obama release the full 28 pages.

Support H.Res. 14 to declassify the 28 pages on 9/11.

LIVE SIMULCAST: APRIL 25, 3PM EDT

Join LaRouchePAC for a live webcast national town hall event this Saturday, April 25, which will include live audiences gathered in New York, Texas, and California and feature presentations by LPAC Science Team leader Benjamin Deniston, as well as LPAC Policy Committee members Kesha Rogers (TX), and Michael Steger (CA).

California now leads the western states with the worst collapse in food production and population since Abraham Lincoln, and it is not the drought! It is the Nazi policies of rabid free-market, Wall Street stealing, tied with the environmentalists’ depopulation agenda which is the problem, and nothing less than a complete rejection of both of these fascist policies will enable the U.S. to survive!

Join LaRouche PAC for a live national town hall meeting to discuss our emergency scientific program to end the water crisis, featuring speakers and audiences in California, Texas, and New York.

The scientific evidence presented by Benjamin Deniston of the LaRouchePAC Scientific Research Team irrefutably demonstrates the incompetence of Jerry Brown, Barack Obama, and the rest of the zero-growth fanatics.

The water exists—for California, for Texas, and for all arid regions—now we must have the political commitment to access it. Mankind is fully capable of managing and increasing the global water cycle to meet the needs for a growing population. This starts by realizing Earth’s water system is driven by solar activity and galactic cosmic radiation—a higher perspective which enables mankind to manage the water resources of our planet and atmosphere in a completely new way. Coupled with desalination and large-scale water transfer projects, we have the basis to address all of mankind’s water needs.

With this commitment, the new incoming Presidency must immediately reinstate Glass-Steagall and end the tyranny of Wall Street’s slave-based system. Second, we must put an end to all laws which violate the General Welfare principle of our United States, including and especially all laws which emphasize population reduction and so-called conservation.

With the restoration of the principles of Alexander Hamilton and our Constitution—a return to pro-growth, pro-science policies such as nuclear fission and fusion power, atmospheric water management, and space exploration—we will put an end to the fascist cycle of wars and destruction, and combine our efforts with those of China, Russia, and the other BRICS nations towards advancing global development.

LIVE SIMULCAST: APRIL 25, 3PM EDT

LIVE SIMULCAST: APRIL 25, 3PM EDT

Join LaRouchePAC for a live webcast national town hall event this Saturday, April 25, which will include live audiences gathered in New York, Texas, and California and feature presentations by LPAC Science Team leader Benjamin Deniston, as well as LPAC Policy Committee members Kesha Rogers (TX), and Michael Steger (CA).

California, along with most of the western states, faces the worst collapse of food production and population in our nation’s history—and it is not the drought. It is the Nazi policies of rabid free-market, Wall Street stealing, tied with the environmentalists’ depopulation agenda which is the problem, and nothing less than a complete rejection of both of these fascist policies will enable the U.S. to survive!

Join LaRouche PAC for a live national town hall meeting to discuss our emergency scientific program to end the water crisis, featuring speakers and audiences in California, Texas, and New York.

The scientific evidence presented by Benjamin Deniston of the LaRouchePAC Scientific Research Team irrefutably demonstrates the incompetence of Jerry Brown, Barack Obama, and the rest of the zero-growth fanatics.

The water exists—for California, for Texas, and for all arid regions—now we must have the political commitment to access it. Mankind is fully capable of managing and increasing the global water cycle to meet the needs for a growing population. This starts by realizing Earth’s water system is driven by solar activity and galactic cosmic radiation—a higher perspective which enables mankind to manage the water resources of our planet and atmosphere in a completely new way. Coupled with desalination and large-scale water transfer projects, we have the basis to address all of mankind’s water needs.

With this commitment, the new incoming Presidency must immediately reinstate Glass-Steagall and end the tyranny of Wall Street’s slave-based system. Second, we must put an end to all laws which violate the General Welfare principle of our United States, including and especially all laws which emphasize population reduction and so-called conservation.

With the restoration of the principles of Alexander Hamilton and our Constitution—a return to pro-growth, pro-science policies such as nuclear fission and fusion power, atmospheric water management, and space exploration—we will put an end to the fascist cycle of wars and destruction, and combine our efforts with those of China, Russia, and the other BRICS nations towards advancing global development.

LIVE SIMULCAST: APRIL 25, 3PM EDT

LIVE SIMULCAST: APRIL 25, 3PM EDT

Join LaRouchePAC for a live webcast national town hall event this Saturday, April 25, which will include live audiences gathered in New York, Texas, and California and feature presentations by LPAC Science Team leader Benjamin Deniston, as well as LPAC Policy Committee members Kesha Rogers (TX), and Michael Steger (CA).

California, along with most of the western states, faces the worst collapse of food production and population in our nation’s history—and it is not the drought. It is the Nazi policies of rabid free-market, Wall Street stealing, tied with the environmentalists’ depopulation agenda which is the problem, and nothing less than a complete rejection of both of these fascist policies will enable the U.S. to survive!

Join LaRouche PAC for a live national town hall meeting to discuss our emergency scientific program to end the water crisis, featuring speakers and audiences in California, Texas, and New York.

The scientific evidence presented by Benjamin Deniston of the LaRouchePAC Scientific Research Team irrefutably demonstrates the incompetence of Jerry Brown, Barack Obama, and the rest of the zero-growth fanatics.

The water exists—for California, for Texas, and for all arid regions—now we must have the political commitment to access it. Mankind is fully capable of managing and increasing the global water cycle to meet the needs for a growing population. This starts by realizing Earth’s water system is driven by solar activity and galactic cosmic radiation—a higher perspective which enables mankind to manage the water resources of our planet and atmosphere in a completely new way. Coupled with desalination and large-scale water transfer projects, we have the basis to address all of mankind’s water needs.

With this commitment, the new incoming Presidency must immediately reinstate Glass-Steagall and end the tyranny of Wall Street’s slave-based system. Second, we must put an end to all laws which violate the General Welfare principle of our United States, including and especially all laws which emphasize population reduction and so-called conservation.

With the restoration of the principles of Alexander Hamilton and our Constitution—a return to pro-growth, pro-science policies such as nuclear fission and fusion power, atmospheric water management, and space exploration—we will put an end to the fascist cycle of wars and destruction, and combine our efforts with those of China, Russia, and the other BRICS nations towards advancing global development.

LIVE SIMULCAST: APRIL 25, 3PM EDT

Hillary Clinton’s official entry into the Presidential race has only stepped up the national drumbeat for a real Democratic presidential candidate, one with the guts and commitment to take on Wall Street and reinstate Glass-Steagall. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s campaign put FDR’s Glass-Steagall back onto the national political agenda, and Wall Street has yet to roll that back.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren today broke months of noticeable silence on Glass-Steagall, putting the need to restore that law back up front in her address on “The Unfinished Business of Financial Reform,” delivered to a Levy Institute conference in Washington, D.C. Three steps adopted by the government in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 worked for half a century, until they were blown away by the political wind of deregulation, she stated from the outset: establishing the SEC, the FDIC, and “a clear division between deposit-taking institutions and investment banks —the Glass-Steagal Act—so that banks couldn’t use government- guaranteed deposits for high-risk speculation.” The biggest banks must be broken up, and “there are two structural ways to do this: We can cap the size of the biggest financial institutions… And we can adopt a 21st-Century Glass-Steagall Act that rebuilds the wall between commercial banking and investment banking,” she said, referencing the bill she had introduced in the last session with three co-sponsors.

Bart Naylor, Financial Policy Advocate for the progressive lobbying group, Public Citizen, another Glass-Steagall supporter who had been silent on it for months, also jumped back in the fight. Corporate Crime Reporter wrote in introducing its interview with Naylor published on April 14:

“According to Naylor, there are two main issues today in D.C. concerning Wall Street and the Big Banks: too big to fail and too big to jail…. And there is a solution: bring back Glass-Steagall and impose a hard cap on the size of banks. If you could take “Big Money” out of the mix, all of this legislation would pass, based on its merits. I don’t know how Glass-Steagall would do in a vote today, if for some reason there was open voting on the Senate floor.”

Naylor cited the 100 co-sponsors on Marcy Kaptur’s bill to restore Glass-Steagall in the last session, and the 10 co-sponsors on Elizabeth Warren’s similar Senate bill.

Former Bill Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes in his latest syndicated column, that Glass-Steagall is the leading issue which Hillary has to take up, if she wants to win the trust of voters:

“If she is to get the mandate she needs for America to get back on track, she will have to be clear with the American people … she’ll need to admit that Wall Street is still running much of the economy, and still out of control. So we must resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act and bust up the biggest banks, so millions of Americans don’t ever again lose their homes, jobs and savings because of Wall Street’s excesses.”

Los Angeles Times columnist Doyle McManus today, and editor of The Nation Katrina van den Heuvel in her April 14 Washington Post column, argue that there will be “a vigorous debate in the Democratic presidential primary campaign,” not over who the nominee should be, but “what it means to be a Democrat in 2016 and what message the party should take into the general election fight,” as McManus put it. Both writers put “breaking up big banks and restoring the Glass-Steagall Act” at the lead of that message, as O’Malley has done.

Hillary Clinton’s official entry into the Presidential race has only stepped up the national drumbeat for a real Democratic presidential candidate, one with the guts and commitment to take on Wall Street and reinstate Glass-Steagall. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s campaign put FDR’s Glass-Steagall back onto the national political agenda, and Wall Street has yet to roll that back.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren today broke months of noticeable silence on Glass-Steagall, putting the need to restore that law back up front in her address on “The Unfinished Business of Financial Reform,” delivered to a Levy Institute conference in Washington, D.C. Three steps adopted by the government in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 worked for half a century, until they were blown away by the political wind of deregulation, she stated from the outset: establishing the SEC, the FDIC, and “a clear division between deposit-taking institutions and investment banks —the Glass-Steagal Act—so that banks couldn’t use government- guaranteed deposits for high-risk speculation.” The biggest banks must be broken up, and “there are two structural ways to do this: We can cap the size of the biggest financial institutions… And we can adopt a 21st-Century Glass-Steagall Act that rebuilds the wall between commercial banking and investment banking,” she said, referencing the bill she had introduced in the last session with three co-sponsors.

Bart Naylor, Financial Policy Advocate for the progressive lobbying group, Public Citizen, another Glass-Steagall supporter who had been silent on it for months, also jumped back in the fight. Corporate Crime Reporter wrote in introducing its interview with Naylor published on April 14:

“According to Naylor, there are two main issues today in D.C. concerning Wall Street and the Big Banks: too big to fail and too big to jail…. And there is a solution: bring back Glass-Steagall and impose a hard cap on the size of banks. If you could take “Big Money” out of the mix, all of this legislation would pass, based on its merits. I don’t know how Glass-Steagall would do in a vote today, if for some reason there was open voting on the Senate floor.”

Naylor cited the 100 co-sponsors on Marcy Kaptur’s bill to restore Glass-Steagall in the last session, and the 10 co-sponsors on Elizabeth Warren’s similar Senate bill.

Former Bill Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes in his latest syndicated column, that Glass-Steagall is the leading issue which Hillary has to take up, if she wants to win the trust of voters:

“If she is to get the mandate she needs for America to get back on track, she will have to be clear with the American people … she’ll need to admit that Wall Street is still running much of the economy, and still out of control. So we must resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act and bust up the biggest banks, so millions of Americans don’t ever again lose their homes, jobs and savings because of Wall Street’s excesses.”

Los Angeles Times columnist Doyle McManus today, and editor of The Nation Katrina van den Heuvel in her April 14 Washington Post column, argue that there will be “a vigorous debate in the Democratic presidential primary campaign,” not over who the nominee should be, but “what it means to be a Democrat in 2016 and what message the party should take into the general election fight,” as McManus put it. Both writers put “breaking up big banks and restoring the Glass-Steagall Act” at the lead of that message, as O’Malley has done.

Hillary Clinton’s official entry into the Presidential race has only stepped up the national drumbeat for a real Democratic presidential candidate, one with the guts and commitment to take on Wall Street and reinstate Glass-Steagall. Former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley’s campaign put FDR’s Glass-Steagall back onto the national political agenda, and Wall Street has yet to roll that back.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren today broke months of noticeable silence on Glass-Steagall, putting the need to restore that law back up front in her address on “The Unfinished Business of Financial Reform,” delivered to a Levy Institute conference in Washington, D.C. Three steps adopted by the government in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 worked for half a century, until they were blown away by the political wind of deregulation, she stated from the outset: establishing the SEC, the FDIC, and “a clear division between deposit-taking institutions and investment banks —the Glass-Steagal Act—so that banks couldn’t use government- guaranteed deposits for high-risk speculation.” The biggest banks must be broken up, and “there are two structural ways to do this: We can cap the size of the biggest financial institutions… And we can adopt a 21st-Century Glass-Steagall Act that rebuilds the wall between commercial banking and investment banking,” she said, referencing the bill she had introduced in the last session with three co-sponsors.

Bart Naylor, Financial Policy Advocate for the progressive lobbying group, Public Citizen, another Glass-Steagall supporter who had been silent on it for months, also jumped back in the fight. Corporate Crime Reporter wrote in introducing its interview with Naylor published on April 14:

“According to Naylor, there are two main issues today in D.C. concerning Wall Street and the Big Banks: too big to fail and too big to jail…. And there is a solution: bring back Glass-Steagall and impose a hard cap on the size of banks. If you could take “Big Money” out of the mix, all of this legislation would pass, based on its merits. I don’t know how Glass-Steagall would do in a vote today, if for some reason there was open voting on the Senate floor.”

Naylor cited the 100 co-sponsors on Marcy Kaptur’s bill to restore Glass-Steagall in the last session, and the 10 co-sponsors on Elizabeth Warren’s similar Senate bill.

Former Bill Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich writes in his latest syndicated column, that Glass-Steagall is the leading issue which Hillary has to take up, if she wants to win the trust of voters:

“If she is to get the mandate she needs for America to get back on track, she will have to be clear with the American people … she’ll need to admit that Wall Street is still running much of the economy, and still out of control. So we must resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act and bust up the biggest banks, so millions of Americans don’t ever again lose their homes, jobs and savings because of Wall Street’s excesses.”

Los Angeles Times columnist Doyle McManus today, and editor of The Nation Katrina van den Heuvel in her April 14 Washington Post column, argue that there will be “a vigorous debate in the Democratic presidential primary campaign,” not over who the nominee should be, but “what it means to be a Democrat in 2016 and what message the party should take into the general election fight,” as McManus put it. Both writers put “breaking up big banks and restoring the Glass-Steagall Act” at the lead of that message, as O’Malley has done.

Dr. Natalia Vitrenko, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU), and former Member of Parliament (1994-2002) and Presidential candidate (1999, 2004), yesterday issued the following Open Letter to Prosecutor General of Ukraine Victor Shokin:

“Dear Victor Nikolayevich,

“I am compelled to request that you defend my rights and freedoms, including the right to life and the inviolability of my person, from encroachment, organized by the Ukraine Security Service (SBU).

“As you well know, on 14 May 2014 the SBU entered in the Unified State Registry notifications of criminal violations of Part 2, Article 15 and Part 2, Article 110 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, against the All-Ukraine Public Women’s Organization Dar Zhizni (Gift of Life), which I head. Since May 2014, the Main Investigative Directorate of the SBU has been conducting a pre-trial investigation under criminal case #22014000000000152.

“The SBU, in violation of the presumption of my innocence, guaranteed by Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and Article 17 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, one year ago circulated a false report, that I was supposedly financing terrorists and separatists through the Dar Zhizni organization.

“The absurdity of this false report is that neither I nor the women’s public organization Dar Zhizni ever had or could have had such plans. Furthermore, the accounts of the Dar Zhizni organization were frozen already on April 29, 2014, since which time it has been impossible to withdraw a single kopeck from them and use it not only for human rights-defense activities, but even for conducting operations mandated under the charter of the organization.

“I was summoned to the SBU twice for interrogation, during which I answered all questions from the investigator in detail and provided to him the agreement, under which the human rights-defense operations of our organization were to be conducted. My explanations and the content of this document absolutely refuted the false report, fabricated by the SBU and distributed through the mass media.

“In the appeals court hearing on the whether or not the freezing of the account was legitimate, neither the investigator nor the prosecutor presented any evidence for the accusations made publicly against our organization. Everything was constructed upon a device that is outlawed in Ukrainian, European, and international law — accusations based on conjecture, guesses, and fabrications.

“Therefore, it has been my opinion, and I state so publicly to you, that the SBU launched a political slander campaign against me and is attempting to shape an image of me as a criminal and enemy of the people, in the public’s opinion. I have been deprived of my rights even to make public refutation.

“Our organization’s account remains frozen, but one week ago came a new media wave to discredit me on the basis of the old false reports. Articles appeared in the media, in particular on the web sites www.glavcom.ua , www.ukr.net, and www.24tv.ua, saying that the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, S. Lavrov, had supposedly allocated 8 million rubles to me for financing separatists and terrorists. Reference was made in these articles to SBU information.

“I have never met Lavrov, put together no plans with him, and have received no money from him. Not for any purpose. And certainly not for infringement of the territorial integrity of Ukraine or for financing terrorists and separatists. Nowhere in the media am I being allowed to state these truths publicly and thus refute the SBU’s false report.

“From this, I draw the conclusion that the SBU, headed by V. Nalyvaychenko, is continuing to build my image as a criminal and enemy of the people, for the purpose of provoking actions against my life — for organizing my physical elimination.

“I believe that the SBU’s actions are blocking my political and public activity, undermining my authority and business reputation, conducting political defamation, and violating my rights and freedoms, guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine and the norms and principles of international law.

“I ask you, using your authority under Article 3 of the Constitution of Ukraine, to look into the problems I have identified, and to defend my rights and freedoms, including the right to life and the inviolability of my person.”

Dr. Natalia Vitrenko, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU), and former Member of Parliament (1994-2002) and Presidential candidate (1999, 2004), yesterday issued the following Open Letter to Prosecutor General of Ukraine Victor Shokin:

“Dear Victor Nikolayevich,

“I am compelled to request that you defend my rights and freedoms, including the right to life and the inviolability of my person, from encroachment, organized by the Ukraine Security Service (SBU).

“As you well know, on 14 May 2014 the SBU entered in the Unified State Registry notifications of criminal violations of Part 2, Article 15 and Part 2, Article 110 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, against the All-Ukraine Public Women’s Organization Dar Zhizni (Gift of Life), which I head. Since May 2014, the Main Investigative Directorate of the SBU has been conducting a pre-trial investigation under criminal case #22014000000000152.

“The SBU, in violation of the presumption of my innocence, guaranteed by Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, and Article 17 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, one year ago circulated a false report, that I was supposedly financing terrorists and separatists through the Dar Zhizni organization.

“The absurdity of this false report is that neither I nor the women’s public organization Dar Zhizni ever had or could have had such plans. Furthermore, the accounts of the Dar Zhizni organization were frozen already on April 29, 2014, since which time it has been impossible to withdraw a single kopeck from them and use it not only for human rights-defense activities, but even for conducting operations mandated under the charter of the organization.

“I was summoned to the SBU twice for interrogation, during which I answered all questions from the investigator in detail and provided to him the agreement, under which the human rights-defense operations of our organization were to be conducted. My explanations and the content of this document absolutely refuted the false report, fabricated by the SBU and distributed through the mass media.

“In the appeals court hearing on the whether or not the freezing of the account was legitimate, neither the investigator nor the prosecutor presented any evidence for the accusations made publicly against our organization. Everything was constructed upon a device that is outlawed in Ukrainian, European, and international law — accusations based on conjecture, guesses, and fabrications.

“Therefore, it has been my opinion, and I state so publicly to you, that the SBU launched a political slander campaign against me and is attempting to shape an image of me as a criminal and enemy of the people, in the public’s opinion. I have been deprived of my rights even to make public refutation.

“Our organization’s account remains frozen, but one week ago came a new media wave to discredit me on the basis of the old false reports. Articles appeared in the media, in particular on the web sites www.glavcom.ua , www.ukr.net, and www.24tv.ua, saying that the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, S. Lavrov, had supposedly allocated 8 million rubles to me for financing separatists and terrorists. Reference was made in these articles to SBU information.

“I have never met Lavrov, put together no plans with him, and have received no money from him. Not for any purpose. And certainly not for infringement of the territorial integrity of Ukraine or for financing terrorists and separatists. Nowhere in the media am I being allowed to state these truths publicly and thus refute the SBU’s false report.

“From this, I draw the conclusion that the SBU, headed by V. Nalyvaychenko, is continuing to build my image as a criminal and enemy of the people, for the purpose of provoking actions against my life — for organizing my physical elimination.

“I believe that the SBU’s actions are blocking my political and public activity, undermining my authority and business reputation, conducting political defamation, and violating my rights and freedoms, guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine and the norms and principles of international law.

“I ask you, using your authority under Article 3 of the Constitution of Ukraine, to look into the problems I have identified, and to defend my rights and freedoms, including the right to life and the inviolability of my person.”