Yevgenia Tymoshenko - Daughter of Yulia Tymoshenko HARDtalk

I will not attend them. It is time for HARDtalk now.

This summer, Ukraine is co-hosting the European football championships

but don't be deceived by the sporting camaraderie. Ukraine's

political relationship with the EU is in crisis. The most pressing

dispute concerns Yulia Tymoshenko, the former prime minister in jail

for seven years after a trial dismissed as a political a charade

by many in the west. My guest today is her daughter, Yevgenia

Tymoshenko. What does the family Welcome to HARDtalk. You have been

thrust into a role that you can never have wanted - campaigning on

behalf of your mother. What is it like we do? Actually I have started

as my mother's public defender in the court key ring back in August.

Since she was illegally arrested. I became a witness, in voluntary

witness of the process. You were in court every day? Every day. It was

held with no brakes, no possibility for the defence to prepare the

strategy. I was able to see the ugly picture behind the so-called

independent judicial system. took a couple of months for the

court procedures to unfold. Was your mother very surprised to be

convicted and to be sentenced? Today, actually ten years ago today

I was in England and both of my parents and my grandfather were in

prison for political repression and I can see it as deja-vu from this

event. What is happening now is the result of my mother's fight with

corruption. Her goal as a politician is to keep going, keep

fighting for democracy in Ukraine. We can say that she thought she

would be persecuted as the main political opponent. She prepared

herself for the likelihood she was going to be in prison?

questioning her and visits to the prosecutor's office started in

early 2010. It started to become evident that she would be one of

the main victims of the political repression again. She has had

several months in prison and was moved from a cell in Kiev to a

prison camp, a penal camp 300 miles east of Kiev. There is speculation

about her health. She has seen independent doctors from other

countries. How is her health? in bad condition. It is getting

worse and has been so since her arrest. She started having symptoms

on her skin after a couple of weeks into the arrest and now, starting

from October she has been suffering back pain. She cannot walk. She has

not had any medical treatment so far. The doctor's report has not

been fully released but they point to a hernia problem. The Ukrainian

authorities have a look that the report and said this is a

validation of our treatment of her. They are not suggesting she needs

special surgery. Are you satisfied that she is getting the treatment

she needs? She's not getting any treatment actually, at the moment.

We don't know if she will get treatment. It has been a very hard

battle for us to get an independent doctor to see her. Diplomats and

the world to put pressure on authorities. After a few days of

battling they managed to see her but now when main issue their

preliminary diagnosis and are preparing the recommendations, the

doctors from the Ministry of Health in Ukraine keep manipulating and

also find the diagnosis. understand, of course, why it you

are campaigning around the world to get your mother out. You have to

accept that she went through due process in Ukraine. There was a

court preceding open to the public. She was convicted in a court of law

under Ukrainian law. She was found guilty of exceeding her authority

when she was prime minister, particularly in relation to the gas

deal with the Russians in 2009. And she is in prison. You call on the

President to release her but that would be flying in the face of due

process, of the constitution, would it not? There are many explanations

as to what is going on. Their earlier in the process a report was

commissioned in regard to the political repression in Ukraine.

They say it is 100% politically motivated. After the promised

reforms for the judiciary system, there is a prosecutor-general, head

of security service - who has left. Claiming by the government that the

judiciary system is independent is a liar and misinformation. I do not

believe your mother consistently called it corrupt and Russian to

the core when she was prime minister, a leading figure in the

Ukrainian political elite. When she was the Prime Minister she had very

high responsibility but very limited powers and instruments to

implement reforms. After the victory was stolen, just before the

Orange Revolution, she did not go after him. She didn't have used the

law system, the criminal court to put him to prison for falsifying

the elections for using corrupt measures to get to the presidency.

She had much more important things to do. To care for the population

via social and economic reforms. want to talk to you about her

relationship with that the former and current presidents. She now

faces the prospect of more charges. These charges go back to the late

1990s when she was the very powerful loner, with your father,

of an energy company that made an awful lot of money. She's connected

with fraud due to the vast amount of money she made in that time. In

Ukraine there are questions about her economic activities at the

times. There are certain problems with the so-called criminal cases.

They are fundamental problems. They have been closed by the Supreme

Court of Ukraine six years ago when my mother was in opposition already.

The Criminal Cases go back to the 1990s and do not have legal basis.

In the time they accused her of some economic mishandling she was

not part of the corporation any more. She left the corporation in

1996 when she started politics. would not deny that she was a close

associate of a former premier of Ukraine who eventually fled the

country under a cloud of allegations and in California was

convicted of money laundering. She clearly benefited from her link to

this man who many would call a classic Ukrainian oligarch of the

time. He was prime minister then and she was a business woman, very

successful and she started the really huge corporation. Recreate

to the trade links between ex Soviet countries after the collapse

of the Soviet Union. The amount of benefit the Corporation brought was

immense. Primarily, your family. Had she and your father decided

that perhaps it is time to be about how much money your parents

made at that time? Theories of the cynicism and about -- there is

cynicism about politicians. If your mother wants to prove that her

hands are entirely clean, wouldn't it be good to be transparent about

this period of her life? It is completely transparent. The amount

of time and effort, money that has been spent to investigate her

corrupt activities and you see the results - the Supreme Court closed

the Criminal Cases. No corruption. This time now all of the charges

have no legal basis at all because they have been resurrected from

something that has been proven and accepted as having no criminal

substance at all. It seems your mother feels she is being

personally persecuted in a very direct way by the President. Is

that true? If you look at the way the courts went, the charges

against her, they have been disproved an seen as absurd charges

by the democratic world. Accepted as such. Let me stop you there. You

have said several times they are absurd. Why is it that there hasn't

been a greater public reaction inside Ukraine? Hundreds of people,

your mother's supporters. A few people tried to demonstrate outside

the prison. We remember the vast hundreds of thousands of people

from the Orange revolution which your mother co-led. Why haven't

those crowds been out there for your mother? There is a simple

answer for this. My mother was free and if that was the case the

protests would be bigger. People... If people cared enough about your

mother's plight wouldn't they be There are show trials not just for

my mother but many politicians and ex-colleagues. They have increased

the number of police and militia forces by hundreds. They have

increased their pay and their rank. You can see that even after a small

protest happens, twice as many police and militia are outside

trying to force people out on the street -- of the street.

It seems to me that there may be one reason why there is some apathy

in regard to your mother's current situation, is that it is deep

disappointment inside the Ukraine at what happened to the Orange

revolution. What happened to the relationship between your mother

and the former President? The CEO leaders of the revolution mood then

had the opportunity to govern together. It failed miserably and

they found out and engaged in a vendetta and a fight between the

two of them and we saw in the end, the former President testified in

accord effectively against your mother, saying that the deal your

mother had struck with the Russians was unjustifiably high a price and

only political motives could have played a role. National interests

were traded for political considerations - an incredibly

damning indictment of your mother. I can say only a few things. There

have been national polls going at the moment in the Ukraine which say

that the President's popularity is less than 1% but my mother's

popularity is 3% and growing. His popularity is plummeting. Talking

about their relationship, I am not a politician and I was not bear

during all of this protest at the time but I saw that my mother did

everything she could. She did everything she could with the

instruments she had to agree to negotiate this difficult contract.

She attempted to make agreements with the International Monetary

Fund to get through very, very hard times economically and with social

reforms to support people who are up warm such as single mothers,

pensioners and disabled people. But what people remember are a

fight between your mother. -- what people remember are the fight

between a mother and the President. Some up for me what she thinks of

him now? During the trial, I was present and

he gave a humiliating and horrible witness statement during the court

case. By trying to give value as a whole struggle of the Orange

revolution. My mother kept silent, although she could ask him and many

questions to counter his arguments but she kept silent because she did

not want to completely ruin this idea that the people fought for and

that she fought for so much during this time and I remember, for

example, when she pushed for a very transparent privatisation in the

Ukraine, the President was just signing a decree with one signature

to cancel all of these good things they could of been done.

Your characterisation of what the President said in court is not

shared by him and his supporters. But it is shared by millions of

people in Ukraine. He that is something that may or

may not be subject to future legal action in the Ukraine but certainly

we need to be clear that it is very much your opinion. But let us

change the focus here. It seems to me that a lot of the campaigning

and what you are doing right now is not so much inside the Ukraine and

talking to people and the Ukraine in getting them out in support of

your mother but it is aimed at western powers. You spend a lot of

time and the United States and European capitals trying to rally

support in the West. There is it that because it is easier for you

to deal with the West? When you sit in a courtroom and you

hear the judges rejecting everything that the Defence says

that is true, finding and the cases some stupid mistakes... Light,

there were materials collected on 31st April or in a future date

which does not exist. There are so many breaches of human rights you

see there and so many breaches of the law and constitution...

Your anger and your passion to write what you perceive to be a

wrong seems to involve you spending an awful lot of time outside your

country in the West. Years because you visit -- because

when I tried to visit my mother and I have no right to and my mother is

not getting any medical treatment, she is being tortured. There is

nobody in the Ukraine that can help me and solve this problem. The

President, the top person in the Ukraine, chose to lead this kind of

oppression that has been condemned by the whole world for many times.

Nothing can the done. So you want the United States and

the European Union to... What? Sent a message via sanctions or what? We

have already seen the European Union freeze the trade and

political agreement that they were going to sign with the Ukraine but

how much further do you want them to go?

I am here and I am talking about what is happening in the Ukraine,

but democratic crisis that is going on and talking on bar of a million

people who feel the same as I feel now and what is happening to my

mother is the pinnacle of this whole crisis and this horrible

breach of every human rights. There is no rule of law in the Ukraine.

We respect that all of the studies of the Ukraine done by independent

experts, they do not suggest that

bitter when the your mother was Prime Minister over the last six or

seven years. There has been constant advice t the Ukraine that

it needs to improve its political freedoms, its media freedoms...

Nevertheless, according to Freedom House, we were a free country but

now we are only partially free. During my mother's incumbency, we

became part of the World Trade Organisation and we started

negotiations and to a free-trade agreement with the European Union

but that has now been undermined completely by the government.

It is interesting thatsting thater from prison sent a messent a mesg

that she did not want that political and free trade agreement

with the European Union to be blocked because of her situation.

She pleaded for both sides to go ahead and sign the agreement, Quote

unquote, for the good of the country.

She believed that strongly and now that in spite of the pain, in spite

that she has to lie down and be always in bed and in pain and under

write letters to her family and

articles to the public about what is going on, she is opposing what

is going on inside the Ukraine but she does not want the Ukraine to

see the sanctions applied against the whole of the nation and the

whole of the people. At least half of the voting populatig populatior

her so why should they suffer for the actions of a government that is

completely going in the wrong direction from the future.

I am a little bit puzzled. Your message to the leaders in obdurate

-- Europe is that you want them to block this important trade

agreement or do you want it to be signed?

Are of course, it is not for asked to decide... Beat the -- we do not

want any sanctions for this important agreement, this chance

for the Ukraine. That has already - - already been done by the

government who have undermined this. All I am asking... All we are

asking and the mentality of the people in power now is abusive and

they are using... Corruption levels had been revealed to be critical.

Before we finish, I want to know - it is a critical year. The Ukraine

is on display to the world and there are Parliamentary elections

later in the year. You have been so outspoken in recent months. Would

you continue to campaign through the election period and that you

yourself take up the political so long?

I never want to be a politician and I am not planning to run any

political campaign... It seems as if you have to because

you are becoming political of necessity.

It is mostly provocation done by the regime's media, saying that I

am running for political office. By political goal but that is

completely untrue and it is done to the value my efforts to do anything

helpful for my mother and for political prisoners in beat Ukraine.

Solely my mission is to help spread the message -- message and help

people. Do you believe you will free your

mother this year? I hope so.