Political harassment on the premises of the cultural institution

A mob of around 100 people broke onto the premises of the Izolyatsia foundation, crashing the front

gates and inflicting other damage to the property with the purpose of putting a halt to an educational

event. Protestors did not disclose their political or institutional affiliation. However, they came fully

prepared with printed leaflets and banners which read “The Internet is not a place for revolutions”, “No

to “the Arab spring” in Donetsk!”, “No to “the Syrian revolution” in Ukraine!” Their leaflets warned

against the spread of new media and new technologies which, according to the protestors' view, incite

violence and insurrection among people.

Today Izolyatsia hosted TechCamp Donetsk 2.0, an educational event for NGOs which was supposed

to teach representatives of various Ukrainian non-governmental institutions how to implement new

media effectively for developing and managing their cultural and social projects. This event with a

clearly non-political flavor got hijacked by the third party to express its political agenda.

Due to safety reasons TechCamp Donetsk 2.0 was prematurely disbanded.