KIEV, August 3 /TASS/. An activist of Ukraine’s Opposition Bloc who was taking part in a pro-party rally in Kharkiv, a city in eastern Ukraine, was kidnapped on Monday. The party’s press service said that its office had also been attacked.
"The activist was standing outside the Kharkhiv regional justice department where the Opposition Bloc was planning to hold a picket when, according to witnesses, he was grabbed by unidentified persons who threw him into a camouflage range rover with the Azov [volunteer battalion - TASS] inscription on it," the Opposition Bloc said in its statement.
The man was then taken to a cemetery where he was undressed and beaten up. The kidnappers also took away the activist’s cell phone.
"Four people in balaclava helmets questioned and bullied the man for forty minutes. They asked him why he had come to a rally and where his parents worked. After that, they beat him up and left him at the cemetery. At the moment, the man is receiving all the necessary medical help," the Opposition Bloc said.
Ukraine’s Opposition Bloc headed by Deputy Mikhail Dobkin rallied outside the Kharkov regional administration on August 3. They want the region’s justice department to register the party’s Kharkiv branch so that the Opposition Bloc could run in the local elections. At the same time, activists of another organization called Gromadska Varta gathered outside the justice department to protest against the Opposition Bloc’s registration.