Beginning of May (or perhaps on april 30th) Gonzalo Lira, citizen of the USA, was arrested and detained by the SBU in the city of Kharkiv (Kharkov), Ukraine. The SBU released a statement on its Telegram channel ( https://t.me/SBUkr/8224 ) about the arrest which seems to be the last public piece of information on Gonzalo available. The legal motive for the arrest and detention is, translated to english, « So far, the investigators of the Security Service have informed him of the suspicion under Art. 2 and 3 Art. 436-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (manufacturing and distribution of materials justifying the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, committed repeatedly). » See SBU's post for further details.

Basically they reproach him to have, like many commentators or simple citizens, justified, during his social media activity, the military operation undertaken by Russia last year, which thereby, as a nation-state, entered the armed conflict which begun in 2014 between the territory of Ukraine and the autonomist Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics. His views on the conflict (which you can find on youtube, Twitter, and Telegram) are largely shared: in countries outside NATO they are vastly dominant, and even in NATO countries they are held by a large minority of the population -probably 30 to 40%. Thus this detention is a clear repression of popular opinions, an assault on democracy.

Since then the public is forced to speculate about Gonzalo's current situation. Fellow political and military pundits attached to human rights have voiced their concern about his health and well-being, as the SBU is well-known for arbitrary intimidation, torture, and executions: prior to 2022 this was documented by many international organization, the most important of which headquartered in the US, GB, or the EU, and Ukraine's government never quelled nor sanctioned, despite calls by UN representatives and all organizations defending human rights. Since 2022 those organizations have clearly been under pressure from the Kiev, the US, and allies not to denounce anymore persecution of ethnic russians and pro russians, like here with Gonzalo Lira. An example of such pressure is the imposition of anti-russian investigators for the UN's human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, in charge of reporting on possible crimes and violation of human rights during the conflict: they are essentially all selected from Kiev and Poland, they have all had an education within NATO countries, thus the views of over 80% of world's population are not represented by those UN officials. Then, in NATO countries, their reports are taken as proofs for all purposes: in medias, in judiciary cases, in political decisions. This is a crucial and deep subject, here is not the place to survey it.

This petition is a call on Ukraine's authorities, the highest ones if need be, to report on Gonzalo Lira's situation, and to release him from detention, as clearly he has not done anything but voice political opinions in good faith, never calling for violent action or the commission of what in most societies (including the US) is deemed unacceptable, illegal. He has never acted as a military informant for the armed forces of Russia -which would perhaps justify expulsion from Ukraine but not jailing. And he has not even released anything that might be deemed classified, secret. What the state of Ukraine has done to Gonzalo is already a great violence, a symbol of its mindset, in opposition with basic human rights and the idea of democracy. This petition calls to reason, to sanity: free this harmless civilian, who has done nothing but share his views, which anyone is free to ignore or listen to, disagree with, and contest. Freeing Gonzalo Lira will be a necessary sign of respect for democracy and the life of all citizens, a small step in the right direction -towards peace.

Free Gonzalo Lira