Genocide Debate: Ukrainian Government Position
On November 28, 2006, the Parliament of Ukraine passed (by a majority of 233 out of 450 votes) a law classifying the Holodomor as genocide. Another bill was sought by Yushchenko's administration to criminalize those disputing that the Holodomor was genocide, but such a law has never been adopted by the Ukrainian parliament. The law would make denying that the Holodomor was "an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people" equal to denying the Holocaust an act of genocide against the Jews. The maximum punishment proposed would be 100–300 "gross salaries", and a prison sentence of up to two years.
On April 26, 2010, newly elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych told Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe members that Holodomor was a common tragedy that struck Ukrainians and other Soviet peoples, and that it would be wrong to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide against one nation. He stated that "The Holodomor was in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. It was the result of Stalin's totalitarian regime. But it would be wrong and unfair to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide against one nation." In response to Yanukovych's statements, the Our Ukraine Party alleged that Yanukovych directly violated Ukrainian law which defines the Holodomor as genocide against the Ukrainian people and makes public denial of the Holodomor unlawful. Our Ukraine Party also asserted that Yanukovych "ignored a ruling of January 13, 2010 by Kyiv's Court of Appeal, which recognized the leaders of the totalitarian Bolshevik regime as those guilty of 'genocide against the Ukrainian national group in 1932-33 through the artificial creation of living conditions intended for its partial physical destruction.'"
Read more about this topic: Holodomor Genocide Question
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