Washington - United States Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) participated in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Ukraine today, giving him the opportunity to meet Eugenia Tymoshenko and to discuss the inhumane detention of her mother, the former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Last October, a Ukrainian court sentenced Yulia Tymoshenko to seven years in prison after she was found guilty of abuse of office when brokering a 2009 gas deal with Russia. The Senator expressed his sympathy and support to Ms. Tymoshenko and vowed to assist in her efforts to have her mother freed from prison.
"Your mother is a pioneering and incredibly strong woman," the Senator told the younger Tymoshenko. "Yulia is an example for all people who care so much about their country that they are willing to endure extraordinary hardship and not just lay down in the face of oppression and cruelty. I think this hearing is a wonderful way to inform the American people not only about your mother, but the other opposition leaders in jail and to keep the pressure on the Ukrainian authorities to give Yulia her freedom back."
"Every day the human rights situation in Ukraine worsens and it's starting to remind me of the shameful conditions of the Soviet era. Yulia Tymoshenko worked very hard to throw off the tyranny of the Soviet past, and to see her and other opposition leaders in jail cells is a reminder of how much work remains to be done to improve human rights and political freedom in today's Ukraine. We must convince President Yanukovych that Ukraine's path to freedom and economic prosperity is not through Soviet-style centralized government, but by way of releasing the power, intelligence and dignity of the Ukrainian people while respecting the rights of all its citizens," added Menendez.
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