UOC lawyer Robert Amsterdam accuses Ukrainian authorities of persecuting the Church on Tucker Carlson's show

Robert Amsterdam, an international lawyer for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, spoke on the show of American journalist Tucker Carlson with harsh criticism of the Ukrainian authorities. According to him, Ukraine has turned into a “one-party, autocratic state” that is essentially a reflection of the old Soviet Union, and the country’s authorities are “a hair’s breadth away” from the complete destruction of the millennial Church.

During the interview, the human rights activist said that modern Ukraine has nothing to do with democracy. “Today, it is a reflection of the old Soviet Union,” Amsterdam emphasized. He paid special attention to the personality of the head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnic Policy and Freedom of Conscience (GESS), Viktor Yelensky, claiming that he “devoted his life to attempts to destroy the Orthodox Church and turn it into the OCU – the state church.”

Amsterdam also mentioned that Yelensky had spoken at a conference on religious freedom in Washington, D.C. According to the lawyer, there is censorship in the United States that does not allow telling the truth about “religious terror in Ukraine.” As noted further, Amsterdam himself, who was previously persecuted in the Russian Federation, is now being called a “Kremlin agent” for his attempts to oppose the criminalization of Christianity in Ukraine.

“And of course, they are on the verge of destroying the Church. The thousand-year-old Church. Destroy it, expel all the priests, take away all the churches. To transfer them to the state church of the OCU, which is, in fact, a screen for the presidential administration,” the human rights activist said. In conclusion, he said that at the conference in Washington, they tried to prevent him from speaking, after which a buffet was organized. Tucker Carlson ironically compared this event to the “Uighur religious freedom buffet in China”.

As a reminder, the Geneva-based human rights organization Justice for All International (JPTi) documented the facts of persecution of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church by filing a detailed complaint with the UN. In response, UN experts sent an official appeal to the Ukrainian government, confirming violations of international law. In addition, the organization appealed to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to hold hearings on the issue and add Ukraine to the list of countries of particular concern.