Looking for a real-world hero or heroine? Someone to tell your students about in Civics class?
Yulia V. Tymoshenko, the leading opposition politician in Ukraine, has been sentenced to seven years in prison on charges that, according to The New York Times, “European leaders have condemned … as politically motivated.” Those unnamed European leaders went on to “hint… that they are unlikely to ratify a free trade and association agreement with Ukraine, a project four years in the making.”
The Times article goes on to portray this extraordinary scene.
“Ms. Tymoshenko, an acerbic populist who represents the European-leaning west of the country, rose to drown out the judge’s voice as he read out the verdict, speaking directly to a bank of television cameras.
” ‘This is an authoritarian régime,’ she said. …”