Kiev, March 24, 2022
Photo: spzh.news
A Ukrainian Orthodox journalist has been held by authorities in Kiev for two weeks now with no access to a lawyer or necessary medical care.
Yan Taksyur, a well-known publicist and host of the First Cossak channel, known for defending the Church against slander and hatred, is suffering from cancer, and his family is worried he won’t live to see his trial.
“Yesterday, Ukrainian Security Service officers with machine guns came to my parents’ apartment, stole almost all the money, and took my father away without bringing any charges… My mother went to the Security Service office today, but they say they don’t know anything about it. We don’t know where my father is, we don’t know what he’s being charged with. His friends are now looking for a lawyer,” Taksyur’s son Ilya told the Union of Orthodox Journalists.
A few days later, the family learned that Taksyur was being held in a pre-trial detention center on charges of high treason. A week after he was detained, he still hadn’t been able to see a lawyer or get medicine.
“My father is in jail. He’s doing very bad. He needs medical help,” Ilya told the UOJ. Taksyur even fainted in jail, but they refuse to send him to a hospital, his daughter Maria reported.
On March 20, His Eminence Metropolitan Luke of Zaporozhye spoke out in Taskyur’s defense, calling him a true patriot, who has always fought for the good of Ukraine with pain in his heart.
While many are going missing and dying during the war, others are being persecuted “because their understanding of life differs from the way some political forces understand it,” Vladyka Luke writes. He also asked for prayers for Taksyur, whose health has rapidly deteriorated while in detention.
In fact, Taskyur’s daughter reported on Tuesday that his situation has become so critical that they fear he won’t live to see a trial.
“Is there really no one who can help us get him out of there before the trial? It’s turning into a real martyrdom. Pray for Yan,” Maria wrote.
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