Yulia Tymoshenko Sentenced to 7 Years Behind Bars
NO!!!
After losing the presidential election last year, Ukranian prime Yulia Tymoshenko was ousted from the government when her long-time opponent Viktor Yanukovich came to power. Today, she was sentenced to seven years in prison over a gas deal that she signed with Russia in 2009. Tymoshenko is accused of abusing power while serving as prime minister by authorizing imports of Russian gas at elevated prices without government approval. The Guardian reports:
Ukraine shut the book on its flirtation with democracy and European integration on Tuesday when it sentenced former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko to seven years in prison in a trial widely seen as a political witch-hunt.
Yulia Tymoshenko is many things to many people. A brief rundown of Coilhouse’s Tymoshenko-stalking over the years:
- Is Ukraine prime minister secretly a goth? (An exhaustive analysis of Tymoshenko’s dramatic, neo-Victorian sense of fashion)
- Exquisite Tymoshenko Doll Helps Orphans (In which I beg the Coilhouse community to buy me a $53K Tymoshenko porcelain fashion doll and further dissect her penchant for black lace and leg-o-mutton sleeves)
- Asgarda – The legend of a mountain-dwelling tribe of paramilitary Amazons who have built a up a cult around Yulia Tymoshenko
Tiger-owning, motorcycling-stradding Yulia Tymoshenko is also an anime and manga character in Japan, the subject of bizarre fan art and a beloved cosplay character. Her sentencing has been the subject of a topless protest by self-described “bitches of democracy” activist group FEMEN (in typical self-contradictory FEMEN fashion, Lady Yu was also the subject of a mocking striptease/protest some months before).
I don’t pretend to know enough about Ukraine’s politics to say whether she’s corrupt or not. If FEMEN is to be believed, the entire trial is “a squabble between two criminal gangs [being presented] as a battle between good and evil.” That’s usually the way these things go.
Even if that’s the truth, I don’t want Lady Yu to go to jail. I want her to continue being one of the most powerful and fabulous women in the world, to wear crinolines with jet-black diamonds and a matching lace-embroidered jet pack, for her to make Ukraine the first nation to colonize Mars, to deploy android copies of herself, and to conduct international diplomacy while riding a dinosaur. Because I believe in this:
FREE YULIA!
[via Daniel]
October 12th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
good god, are you kidding me?? Total political witch-hunt. They can’t try Blair for war crimes but they an jail Tymoshenko for 7 years for some gas deals? If I remember correctly (which I probably don’t) this was when there was a big question over gas coming into the EU because all Russian gas is routed to us through Ukraine so she basically realised the power Ukraine had and bartered a better deal out of Moscow. anyone care to correct me here?
what a ridiculous imprisonment.
October 12th, 2011 at 3:43 pm
Am I really expected to believe that this woman is not entirely fictional?
October 13th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Russia still has some colonies, eh?
Such a shame. She’s such a doll !
October 14th, 2011 at 5:32 am
To be fair, Tymoshenko has been horrible for Ukraine, but no less than Yanukovich himself… Just another step backwards for my homeland!
October 31st, 2011 at 1:38 pm
[…] a goth fashion icon en par with the likes of Elvira, Vampira, Morticia and her recent prison buddy Yulia. Above is a retrospective of Martha costume insanity from years past, and as you can see she takes […]