Published
Fri, Nov 3, 2017, 14:17
- The incident on Friday, October 28th resulted in several beatings and arrests, according to eyewitnesses.
Kiev club Jugendhub was raided by armed police and military officials on Friday, October 28th in an incident that resulted in multiple beatings, arrests and alleged theft of valuable equipment.
According to eyewitnesses and footage from the scene, around 50 "uniformed and masked men with weapons" stormed the 300-capacity venue at 2 AM. Approximately 200 people were inside at the time. "They started to turn out our pockets, beat the visitors and check all men for evasion of military service and some guys were taken away," said Jugendhub co-founder Anastasiia Spyrydenko. "They beat people completely without reason—everyone was frightened and did not resist at all. Police used excessive physical strength, there were blood stains on the floor. Personal belongings, equipment [and] clothes were stolen."
The official police report, published on the afternoon of Friday, October 28th, says that the club has been the subject of repeated noise complaints from nearby residents. On the night of the raid, 17 people were taken to a nearby police station on drug possession charges, while 11 underage partygoers were returned to their parents.
Another 32 people, accused of having evaded army service, were transported to a military enlistment office. (Army service is compulsory in Ukraine.) Detainees present at the military office told a source close to Resident Advisor that some people were subsequently released, while others were kept for up to 24 hours without being able to contact relatives or lawyers.
The police report also states that Jugendhub "operates without any permits," though a Facebook post by the lawyer working on behalf of the club, Kseniya Prokonova, disputes this, saying that "all the paperwork is fine." The police report's claim that the bathrooms "do not work" is also allegedly misleading—eyewitnesses said that the authorities caused the damage themselves, breaking the pipes and kicking cubicle doors.
Since opening in July this year, Jugendhub has hosted regular parties featuring mostly local and Russian house and techno artists. Though the club remains open after the raid, there will be no parties in the near future. (The raided event marked the closing of the current season.) The only event in the diary is a lecture about drug safety, scheduled for this Saturday, November 4th.
Jugendhub isn't the first Kiev club to be targeted by the authorities—Closer was raided several times in 2015 on suspicion of drug-related activity. More recently in Moscow, staff and punters at Rabitza were violently attacked by police, an incident that led to the club's subsequent closure.