At the end of June 2022 Ukraine’s civic sector and media were rocked by a painful discovery that one of the most prominent human rights defenders, Maksym Butkevych, was taken prisoner by the invading Russian forces, the Ukraine Crisis Media Center reports.
The fate and whereabouts of Maksym, a co-founder of Hromadske Radio and human rights center ZMINA, a co-founder and coordinator at No Borders Projects, remain unknown. Fears over his safety are spreading throughout the global human rights community with organizations such as Open Democracy, Transparency International and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) calling for his immediate release. This demand is driven by Ukrainian voices who know Maksym as one of the leading anti-racist and anti-fascist activists, but also as a professional journalist and a media expert who dedicated his efforts to combating hate speech and propaganda. RTWT
