CN OPORA claims that it hasn’t any connection to the dweller of Donetsk Kostyantyn Lavrov, who was detained yesterday by the law enforcement cervice and incriminated the extortion of USD 7000 for stopping the protests connected with the dismanting of the building of “Druzhba” hotel. In addition to this OPORA pays attention that the “activist” illegally used the brand and symbols of “OPORA” that were registered according to the Ukrainian legislation and they are the intellectual property of the network.
OPORA doesn’t have its office in Donetsk region where it works with NGO partners from 2007. OPORA doesn’t deny the fact that Mr. Lavrov belonged to the network before 2006. Then the organization began receiving the information that Kostyantyn felt free to protect somebody’s business interests and organized the customized actions. The incident led to the exclusion of Lavrov from OPORA according to the decision of the Coordinative Council.
OPORA intends to appeal to the court to stop the unlawful usage of brand name that harms its business reputation.
We remind that OPORA is non-governmental, financially and politically independent network of public activists that was created for activation of the public involvement in the political process with the help of implementation of the models of influence of the citizens on the state and local government bodies in Ukraine. OPORA’s strategy is oriented on three issues: monitoring of elective and public political processes, education reform and fighting the corruption in the universities, housing and public utilities reform.