It has become common to hear from some popular voices that Ukraine’s President Zelensky has banned religion, free media, and opposition political parties, implying that he’s a bit of a totalitarian that may not be all that different from Putin.
You’ll hear this from Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, and Ron Paul. I’ll quote Gabbard since she’s the last I heard say these things:
The other thing that was so disturbing about his speech was how he spoke about freedom, and democracy, and he’s putting himself in this position of being the champion of democracy around the world, and our own leaders have lionized him, and made this whole war about “we have to defend democracy and freedom in Ukraine or democracy and freedom in the world will be assaulted.”
Well, let’s look at what kind of democracy Zelensky is leading. He not only jailed his political opponents very early on, he banned their entire political party. He shut down any media that was not controlled by him. So no free speech, no room for any political opposition, and then he went after religion. THERE’S NO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN HIS COUNTRY.
He shut down the second largest Christian church in Ukraine, and and for what? Under the guise of democracy and freedom? How is this representative of the kind of democracy that our founders envisioned? It doesn’t. So what every American should think about when they watch this is that this is the guy they put as the figurehead of democracy. And we saw Republicans and Democrats applauding for this person, who doesn’t believe in free speech, doesn’t believe in the freedom of religion, doesn’t believe in the freedom of democracy at all….
Source: The Details About Zellenskyy That the Media Hides (Pt. 3) | Tulsi Gabbard | POLITICS | Rubin Report
Tucker Carlson and Ron Paul parrot the same Kremlin talking points as does Gabbard.
But is this anywhere near accurate?
Context
Before getting into the detailed analysis, let’s consider a little context first.
With no provocation Ukraine has been INVADED from the North, East, and South. And while invaders have been driven out of parts of the country, more than 20% remain under enemy occupation.
Every time territory is liberated by Ukrainian forces, they find mass burial sites, evidence of civilian executions, murder, torture, and rape, not to mention cities nearly razed to the ground.
Every week or two Russia launches a barrage of hundreds of missiles and kamikaze drones at civilian targets. Many times each week everyone living in Ukraine hears air alerts warning of incoming rockets, missiles, and/or drones and they rush to a bomb shelter. In some periods they hear explosions many times each week, and live with rolling electrical blackouts such that they have power around four out of every 24 hours.
So yes, as Ukraine is under martial law it has necessarily enacted some temporary emergency measures. It sounds bad, I know. BUT, did you know that this is a perfectly normal, natural, and reasonable during war time? Almost every country does this, INCLUDING America.
Banning Political Parties
Did you know that the U.S. banned the American Communist Party during the Cold War? I’m not a scholar on this, but in five minutes of grueling online research I found this:
The [Communist Control Act] of 1954 portrayed the American Communist Party as an “agency of a hostile foreign power.”[2] The Party was described as “an instrumentality of a conspiracy to overthrow the government,” and as a “clear, present, and continuing danger to the security of the United States.”[2] The Act made membership to the Communist Party a criminal act…
Source: Communist Control Act of 1954
Banning Media
And did you know that in the U.S. freedom of speech has been strictly limited during times of war? Here are a few more nuggets I found in my grueling web research:
The Supreme Court declared that the government could restrict speech more in times of war than in times of peace. …
The Revolutionary War era featured numerous restrictions on free speech and free press. Those who were considered loyal to the King of England – loyalists – were subject to a host of onerous restrictions by colonial leaders. Some colonies passed laws declaring it treasonous to support the British King. …
[During the Civil War] President Abraham Lincoln seized the telegraph lines, suspended habeas corpus and issued an order prohibiting the printing of war news about military movements without approval. People were arrested for supporting the Confederacy – even wearing buttons or singing Confederate songs…
Source: Free Speech During Wartime
Then there’s the 1919 Supreme Court case, Schenck v. United States.
A unanimous Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., concluded that Charles Schenck, who distributed flyers to draft-age men urging resistance to induction, could be convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, a criminal offense. The First Amendment did not protect Schenck from prosecution, even though, “in many places and in ordinary times, Schenck, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within his constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.” In this case, Holmes said, “the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” Therefore, Schenck could be punished.
Source: Schenck v. United States
Simply put, in NORMAL circumstances Schenck could legally distribute his subversive flyers, but during war time it was illegal.
So, when Tulsi Gabbard says “How is this representative of the kind of democracy that our founders envisioned? It doesn’t…”, it is EXACTLY the kind of democracy our founders envisioned, and recognized and practiced throughout our history… as least as regards this freedom of speech and association (political parties).
No Religious Freedom
As for Gabbard’s claim that “there’s no religious freedom in his country [Ukraine]”, it’s patently ridiculous.
I LIVED in Ukraine for five years (three of them overlapping Zelensky’s presidency) and can tell you that there is far MORE religious freedom in Ukraine than in America. They have RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS on and in public buildings, and no one gets upset if you say “Merry Christmas”.
I am a Christian, and I attended church regularly in Kyiv. I have a friend who is the founder of Kyiv Theological Seminary, and another who is a professor there. They train Ukrainians to be Christian pastors.
Andriy Murzin is a Ukrainian professor at this seminary and currently serves as a volunteer chaplain in Ukraine’s military. He was recently interviewed about this question of religious freedom in Ukraine. Starting after the 10 minute point he says:
What [Tucker Carlson] says about the persecution of Christianity – that’s a complete lie. There is one issue that he is using, and he is misrepresenting it, and perverting it, and that is the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which has for many decades has basically been an agent of the Kremlin.
The Russian Orthodox Church as it exists now was basically created by Stalin in 1943… They controlled it from the very beginning, and in these last several decades they used it for Kremlin’s propaganda.
And so this Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine has been someone who works for the enemy. This has been obvious and proven and many Ukrainians are surprised that the Ukrainian Security Service is beginning to act only now. They should have done something about it long, long ago.
So what is happening now is actually that they’re just beginning to investigate and to stop and expose some of those Russian agents in Eastern Orthodox robes in Ukraine, and rightfully so. This was only high time to do so.
So Americans should understand that those people are not Christians, those so-called Russian Orthodox, they are disguised agents of Putin.
Source: Russia’s War on Christianity / Ukrainian Chaplain Responds To Tucker Carlson’s LIES
There is one other detail that is misunderstood about this. Even among people who defend Ukraine’s action regarding the Russian Orthodox Church get one important detail wrong when they report that “churches” have been shut down. It’s NOT plural, it’s ONE. ONE CHURCH has been closed. One location of one church known to be working with Russian FSB (“KGB”).
Conclusion
One would hope that highly visible public figures would be more careful in their positions and do a little fact-checking their points before spewing such damaging, irresponsible sewage.
It really isn’t that hard, just open up your favorite search engine and type “freedom of the press during war time” or “free speech during war time”. But don’t each of these people have a STAFF that does this kind of thing for them?
But when these people make such ridiculously misleading claims where the truth is really so obvious and available, one wonders… Are they just lazy? Ignorant? Do they even care that what they’re saying is HARMFUL? Is it DELIBERATE?
It certainly appears that they don’t care that it is harmful, and there’s no doubt that it’s deliberate.
I mean Tucker Carlson is Fox News’ biggest star. Certainly he’s smart enough to find the truth about this on his own, and certainly he has enough of a research staff to get details for him and know that what he reports on this subject is unconscionably misleading. Yet he and others like Gabbard double down, again and again.