Biography of Ostap Stakhiv
Biography of the Chairman of the NGO “Union of Human Rights Defenders of Ukraine” Ostap Stachiw
Blogger, Journalist, Human Rights Defender
Born on January 1, 1985, in Chodoriv, he attended Chodoriv ZOSCH No. 3 from 1991 to 1999 and graduated from Chodoriv Music School for the bandura class in 2000. From 1999 to 2002, he studied at Ivano-Frankivsk Internet School No. 1, where he played football at DUSSH-3.
In 2003, he obtained a vocational degree as a computer operator and accountant from VPU-63 in Lviv. In 2008, he graduated in Organizational Management in the Agrarian Sector from Lviv National Agrarian University.
From 2005 to 2023, he was an entrepreneur, and since 2019, he has been the founder and director of LLC “Good Idea.”
In November 2010, he founded and led the NGO “Idea of the Nation,” which also operated in the Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Transcarpathian regions, as well as in Kyiv. The organization advocated for the protection of workers in enterprises, the preservation of parks, squares, and forests from illegal logging, and the protection of historical heritage, particularly architecture and the graves of Ukrainian political prisoners.
In 2014 and 2019, he ran as a deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in constituency 117 (Galicia and Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv city) and ran for the mayor of Lviv in 2020.
In 2016, he founded the newspaper “Halizki Visti,” which was targeted by officials who did not register it in the new registry of the Rada, as its journalists acted legally according to the Constitution of Ukraine and international treaties.
In 2020 and 2021, he visited 24 infectious disease hospitals in live broadcasts, proving that the statistics of the so-called “plandemic” were falsified.
In December 2020, he founded the movement PRAWO LYUDYNY, which was represented in all regions of Ukraine and had its horizontal platforms in 150 cities.
Repression, Bullying, and Persecution
On March 13, 2020 (Saturday), Ostap Stachiw visited the Irshava District Hospital in the Transcarpathian region, which was declared a “red zone” in the illegal quarantine program by the Kyiv government due to the so-called “banana ficus,” to maintain public control as a journalist. Three other journalists accompanied Ostap, and during a live broadcast, they showed that the hospital was practically empty. Police officers appeared during the live broadcast, illegally detaining the journalists and attempting to issue illegal administrative protocols for an administrative violation. All the journalists were subjected to unlawful physical violence and were held for three hours at the Irshava police station. In particular, Ostap Stachiw was subjected to physical and psychological pressure to force him to sign an illegal administrative protocol.
Ostap’s fingers were broken to the point of bleeding, and his equipment was damaged; these events occurred during a live broadcast followed by several thousand people. After some time, people from Irshava entered the police station to free the journalists who had been subjected to torture.
The police then called a state lawyer and an ambulance for Ostap, after which he entered the police station. The journalists decided not to leave the Transcarpathian region immediately but to go to the hospital at night to seek medical help and treat their injuries. On Monday, they planned to go to the head of the Main Department of the National Police in the Transcarpathian region and demand an internal investigation and criminal prosecution of those responsible for the torture of the journalists. On Sunday, the journalists filed a criminal complaint with the police in the Vynohradiv district, which was forwarded to the DBR in Lviv, and a criminal case was later initiated based on it.
On November 3, 2021, Ostap Stachiw, as the founder of the PRAWO LYUDYNY movement, organized an action for rights and freedoms in Kyiv at the Constitution of Ukraine Square, attended by more than 10,000 people from all over Ukraine. Following this action, Ostap was slandered in all central media, and on November 3, 2021, a criminal case was opened against him for quoting an excerpt from I. Franko’s poem “Kamenjari.” The SBU opened a criminal case under paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 109 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. On November 16, 2021, searches were conducted in Ostap’s apartment in Lviv, followed by his abduction from a hospital in the city of Svalyava on November 17, 2021, and his detention in the ITT of the Lviv region, as well as later through an illegal ruling by the Halych District Court in Lviv (Judge Yurkiw) on November 18, 2021, in the Lviv pre-trial detention center. On November 24, there was an action for rights and freedoms in Kyiv, prepared by Ostap, but the PRAWO LYUDYNY movement participated without him since he was in pre-trial detention. About 10,000 people from all over Ukraine took part in the action, starting with a public assembly in front of the Supreme Council of Ukraine, followed by a procession through Kyiv to the SBU, where they demanded an end to repression against people defending rights and freedoms in Ukraine, specifically highlighting the repression against the founder of the PRAWO LYUDYNY movement, Ostap Stachiw. On the same day (Wednesday, November 24, 2024), a hearing of the appeal took place in the Lviv Appeal Court, where the judges upheld the decision of the Halych Court in Lviv. Subsequently, Ostap’s lawyer, Mykhailo Maharskyi, visited him in pre-trial detention and conveyed the information that fundraising for bail should begin, which took three days, and the required amount was raised: 1 million UAH. However, on the day the bail was to be paid, the SBU and the prosecutor’s office requested a stationary forensic psychiatric examination for Ostap in a psychiatric clinic in Lviv for 30 days, and this request was granted by the Halych District Court in Lviv, the same Judge Yurkiw who had illegally sent Ostap to pre-trial detention. Thus, Ostap was released from pre-trial detention on December 1, 2021, and immediately taken for forensic psychiatric examination in Lviv on Kulparkivska Street, from which he was released on December 29, 2021. Ostap was charged with a fabricated case, and searches and interrogations were conducted not only against him but also against other members of the PRAWO LYUDYNY movement and individuals who disseminated information about the rights and freedoms action on social networks; such searches and interrogations occurred more than 50 times. The bail that people had raised to free Ostap from pre-trial detention was handed over to the Ukrainian army for the purchase of bulletproof vests in March 2022 with the consent of those who had provided the bail. On April 22, 2022, the prosecutor’s office transferred Ostap’s case to the Halych District Court in Lviv, which then forwarded the case to the Pechersk District Court in Kyiv, which subsequently returned the case to the Halych District Court in Lviv. The Halych District Court in Lviv examined the case for two years as part of the preparatory hearing; afterward, Ostap filed a motion with the Supreme Court regarding the fact that the case should be examined by the Pechersk District Court in Kyiv (prepared by lawyer Mykola Kreminec), but the Supreme Court did not support Ostap’s motion. Therefore, he filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of Cassation, which granted the motion and transferred the case to the Pechersk District Court in Kyiv. On September 3, 2024, the judge of the Pechersk District Court in Kyiv, Bilocerkivec, granted the motion of lawyer Mykhailo Maharskyi to return the indictment to the prosecutor’s office, as it did not meet the requirements of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.
Since 2023, he has been conducting journalism courses that enabled the creation of a network of honest journalism in Ukraine. Thus, in 2024, the Union of Journalists was established by Ostap to protect the rights of honest journalists.
In 2023, he founded and led the NGO “Union of Human Rights Defenders of Ukraine” to organize people defending their rights and freedoms. From August 8 to 11, 2024, the first congress of human rights defenders took place in the Carpathians, attended by people from various regions of Ukraine who discussed issues of uniting human rights defenders in Ukraine to protect human rights and freedoms.