Seven deputies of Ukrainian Parliament have put forward a bill for the prohibition of astrology, numerology, forecasting and of any other subject linked to any form of magic. It is not a joke! They want to forbid both the practice of these subjects and the distribution of any kind of information pertaining to these spheres, except "criticism narrating the negative impacts of these practices...". This bill-draft was registered in Parliament on April 13, 2010 at the focus of the comet Hale-Bopp (article will follow on this matter).

Our Kharkov regional Astrological Centre sent an appeal for protest to Parliament (I signed it as the president of this association) which has been registered there on April 22, since from our point of view it conflicts with the Constitution of Ukraine (official issue in English)

Our Kiev astrologer-colleagues (Kalantarova, Holomeev and some others) also sent their protest-letters. Our recently organized all-Ukrainian Astrological Association had organized a press-conference on this matter. Now, we are preparing new appeals to the Ukrainian authorities and journalists. The game is worth candles: we can presume that accepting such a bill in one country may engender a bad precedent for others.

We are not committed to the flames yet, but we appeal to those who consider this bill as obscuration to support our struggle. For this purpose, we have translated these documents into English and posted them on our site in order to facilitate the access to them (the above two references).

To this end, and taking into account the peculiarities of consideration of a bill, we may suggest that it is probably better to send your grounded objections to the Parliamentary Committees and to journalists and mass media owners since the latter are also very much interested in rejecting this bill because they widely use these subjects in Ukraine; addresses are given in the second of the above references (to be updated on April 26). Besides, as Deputies may not be well acquainted with English or other foreign language, it is probably better to send the letters by post (viz. in a paper form, for official registration as well) to the address of Verkhovna Rada (the Parliament), or to the specified e-mail addresses of the secretaries of the respective Committees.

Actually, a month ago it was impossible to imagine that a legal witch hunt could arise in the 21st Century!
[Note editor: More information will follow in the ezine if necessary.
I would also suggest: Human Rights Watch.