SBU
Criminal Case Against Museum Head
Kyiv (RFE/RL) - The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU)
has launched a criminal investigation against the director of a Lviv museum,
saying he intended to give away state secrets.
SBU officials claim that Ruslan Zabilyj, head of the Prison on
Zabily, whose museum is dedicated to the victims
of Soviet and Nazi rule, denies any wrongdoing. At a September 10 press
conference in Kyiv, he said that he was detained on September 8 at the train
station in Kyiv upon arriving from Lviv and interrogated for more than 14
hours, without official sanction.
Zabilyj, 35, said his laptop and two hard discs were confiscated,
questioned about his contacts with foreign academics and was advised to get a
job as a school teacher. He said that the confiscated data concerns the
activities of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, a partisan army which fought against
the Soviets and Nazis in World War II, and the Soviet-era dissident movement -
documents which have long been declassified.
The Prison on Lontskoho museum was established in
2009 under the auspices of the SBU. Zabilyj is a historian by training.
The museum shows visitors conditions in which detainees lived and places where
mass executions took place. The museum is housed in a 19th-century building
that was built to house the Austro-Hungarian gendarmerie. It has served
as a Polish, Soviet, and Nazi prison.
Volodymyr Viatrovych, the former chief archivist
of the SBU, believes that the new authorities are trying to pressure
historians who are researching the Ukrainian liberation movement.
Since the beginning of this year, a number of
Ukrainian civic activists, journalists, and bloggers have voiced concern over
increased interest from the SBU. Several have been called in for
“conversations” and been issued warnings.