Note: This text is part of the longer text NGOs and state-funded research trying to silence peace voices in Sweden.
The NGOs Östgruppen för demokrati och rättigheter and Ordfront also systematically together with PEN Sweden, silenced any knowledge from their websites about the systematic violations of human rights in Ukraine while, together with hundreds of cases in Russia, violations against human rights in DPR and LPR as well as Crimea gets extensive coverage by these organizations.
The Swedish NGOs that don’t see, don’t hear and don’t speak.
Source: Aktivister för fred.
There is not a single case from Ukraine reported since the overthrow of Yanukovych in February 2014 until 2017. This is silenced while presidential candidates were violently attacked several times, four opposition parties got their offices stormed by the right-wing extremists, their membership register stolen or were stopped from acting openly by other means. Also, secret prisons are run by the Ukrainian security police and mass murder takes place with the consent of the government.
NGOs act against a documentary exposing fascist violence in Ukraine
The human rights NGOs showed their active opposition against exposing fascist violence and violations of human right in Ukraine during spring 2016. The Swedish national broadcast television had bought a French documentary called “Ukraine – the masks of the revolution”. When the broadcast was announced, the lack of concern about the actual abuses of human rights in Ukraine was replaced by hectic activity to label the documentary as false Russian propaganda.
Presentation of Paul Moreira’s documentary “Ukraine – the masks of the revolution”.
Östgruppen co-organized an international petition campaign to demand that the documentary should not be shown without the experts questioning its content. They were also willing to present names which could participate in the TV-program when the documentary was broad casted to immediately comment upon the content in the way the NGOs claimed was a more correct version than what was presented by the French renowned and award-winning filmmaker.
Article published in Ordfront Magasin April, 26 2016:
“Biased and simplified in SVT’s documentary”.
Author: Daniel Wiklander.
Ordfront has also participated in the campaign against the documentary. The editor Daniel Wiklander of the Syndicalist paper Arbetaren, where the articles by Putilov and Lännevall against Sachnin and any left-wing opposition who expressed opinions against the Swedish Ukrainian-policy were published, was now working for Ordfront. He wrote and published an editorial against the documentary while the rest of the edition of the magazine was filled with half a dozen stories about Russian propaganda and violations against human rights.
Östgruppen and Ordfront were strongly supported in their efforts against the French documentary by the Frivärld – a think tank sponsored by the Swedish employers’ association focused on defense issues and international policy. Also, the key journalists in the mainstream media and public service broadcasting acted against the French documentary. The Swedish consensus mentality did not accept any deviation from the main stream Swedish narrative.
But the campaign against the documentary failed to succeed. The international petition campaign coordintated by Östgruppen received 400 signatures. A national petition launched by Activists for Peace and its magazine Ukrainabulletinen received 1100 signatures. The documentary was, after delays, broad casted together with comments from an unbiased expert who was invited instead of people with views promoted by the state funded NGOs, business think tanks and the mainstream journalists.
After that, it became somewhat easier to discuss the Ukrainian conflict in social media while mainstream media still denied the access to all our articles and in general continued to keep silence about the problems in Ukraine.
Activists for Peace 