Russian communists demand freedom for Oleg Horzhan in Transnistria

The Supreme Court of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (Transnistria) handed down a verdict against Horzhan, finding him guilty of making appeals to destabilize the political situation during a protest. By the decision of Transnistrian bourgeois justice, Oleg Horzhan will spend 4.5 years behind bars and pay a fine of 6,400 Transnistrian rubles (more than 100,000 Russian rubles). 

The leader of the Transnistrian communists is charged under article 315, part 1 of the Criminal Code of Transnistria (use or threat of violence against a representative of the authorities in connection with the performance of official duties), as well as article 316 of the Criminal Code (public insult of a representative of the authorities in the performance of duties).

On June 6, 2018, at a meeting of the Supreme Soviet, Oleg Horzhan was deprived of his parliamentary immunity and the same day was taken into custody. The deputy corps of the bourgeois parliament in the republic is no different from that of the servile Russian State Duma, always ready to take its cue from the orders of the executive power.

Comrade Horzhan received a criminal sentence for demanding that officers of the Tiraspol city police release detained participants of a rally organized by him, as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet. His son was also among the detainees. The leader of the communists urged police not to violate the law, which was judged by the court as a “call for sabotage.”

Horzhan’s imprisonment is another link in the chain of persecutions of the communists of Transnistria. We note with regret that the alarming signals from Tiraspol tell us that the new Transnistrian authorities follow the vicious path of the authorities in a number of other post-Soviet states – using anti-communism and wiping the Soviet period from human memory to serve the purposes of their own historical justification. Today, Ukraine leads the way on this shameful path, where the communists are under an actual ban. It is shameful that the Transnistrian leaders copy the worst examples of the political practices of their neighbors.

The United Communist Party calls upon fraternal communist parties, and all progressive organizations that stand for democracy and social justice, to express solidarity with the communists of Transnistria.

Free Oleg Horzhan! Stop the persecution of the communists!

Source

Translated by Greg Butterfield