Iryna Dovhan ( uk, Ірина Володимирівна Довгань; born 25 January 1962) is a Ukrainian activist and a native of

Yasynuvata Yasynuvata ( uk, Ясинува́та, ; russian: Ясиноватая — Yasinovataya) is a city in Donetsk Oblast (province) of south-eastern Ukraine. Administratively, it is incorporated as a city of oblast significance. It also serves as th ...

Donetsk Donetsk ( , ; uk, Донецьк, translit=Donets'k ; russian: Донецк ), formerly known as Aleksandrovka, Yuzivka (or Hughesovka), Stalin and Stalino (see also: cities' alternative names), is an industrial city in eastern Ukraine loca ...

suburb), who was abducted in 2014 by pro-Russian insurgents of the Vostok Battalion. She says that she was beaten and humiliated for five days. According to her testimony, she was held in jail and interrogated before being handed over to mercenaries, apparently from North Ossetia, who subjected her to torture, calling her a fascist and forcing her to shout "

Sieg Heil The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute (german: link=no, Hitlergruß, , Hitler greeting, ; also called by the Nazi Party , 'German greeting', ), or the ''Sieg Heil'' salute, is a gesture that was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany. Th ...

", repeatedly shooting pistols next to her ears and threatening to rape her. She was freed on August 28 after,

Mark Franchetti Mark Franchetti is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. He worked for 23 years as a correspondent for the Sunday Times of London, much of it as the paper's Moscow correspondent. Fluent in five languages, Franchetti was awarded the British Press ...

, a reporter for the British newspaper

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...

, and Dmitry Beliakov, a Russian freelance

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in other ...

, pleaded with leader

Alexander Khodakovsky Alexander Sergeevich Khodakovsky ( rus, Алекса́ндр Серге́евич Ходако́вский, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲejɪvʲɪtɕ xədɐˈkofskʲɪj) is the commander of the pro-Russian Vostok Battalion formed in early May ...

to release her. Khodakovsky ordered Iryna Dovhan freed and vowed to discipline those responsible for her detention and

public humiliation Public humiliation or public shaming is a form of punishment whose main feature is dishonoring or disgracing a person, usually an offender or a prisoner, especially in a public place. It was regularly used as a form of judicially sanctioned puni ...

. She has since left Donetsk and joined her family in

Mariupol Mariupol (, ; uk, Маріу́поль ; russian: Мариу́поль) is a city in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. It is situated on the northern coast ( Pryazovia) of the Sea of Azov, at the mouth of the Kalmius River. Prior to the 2022 Russia ...

, a city then-controlled by Ukrainian forces.

August 2014 incident

Dovhan became famous after photos of her made by Maurício Lima (published in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'') appeared in social and international media, showing her standing at a busy intersection in downtown

holding a sign identifying her as a spy and reading: "She kills our children". She says passers-by slapped and kicked her, spit on her and hurled tomatoes at her face. A photograph of her mistreatment stirred widespread outrage in Ukraine, prompted a social media effort to identify her and drew the attention of

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

human rights monitors. The insurgents who abducted her are associated with the Vostok Battalion, led by former SBU operative

, accused her for being a spy and an

artillery observer An artillery observer, artillery spotter or forward observer (FO) is responsible for directing artillery and mortar fire onto a target. It may be a ''forward air controller'' (FAC) for close air support (CAS) and spotter for naval gunfire su ...

for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Iryna Dovhan stated that she was never a spy, but she freely admits to being a volunteer who collected donations (food, clothes, medications, and money) from locals and delivered them to Ukrainian soldiers stationed nearby. She also says she wasn't the only person in Donetsk who helped Ukrainian soldiers through donations. She says that she made a fateful mistake when she took photos of soldiers receiving the collections, with the intention of showing them to people who donated the supplies. In her interviews to Hromadske.tv and

Radio Liberty Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

, she stated that if it hadn't been for those pictures, she might not have ever seen her family again. The Ukrainian television program ''Vikna'' filmed an exclusive interview of Dovhan and her family. Dovhan met, thanked and hugged the photographer Maurício Lima, whose photograph drew wide attention to her plight.

Aftermath

After September 2014, Dovhan and her family started rebuilding their lives in Mariupol. They didn't expect financial assistance from the Ukrainian government. In the

2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election Snap elections to the Verkhovna Rada took place on 26 October 2014. Petro Poroshenko, the President of Ukraine, had pressed for early parliamentary elections since his victory in the presidential election in May.non-partisan Nonpartisanism is a lack of affiliation with, and a lack of bias towards, a political party. While an Oxford English Dictionary definition of ''partisan'' includes adherents of a party, cause, person, etc., in most cases, nonpartisan refers s ...

candidate tried to win a parliament seat by winning a

single-member districts A single-member district is an electoral district represented by a single officeholder. It contrasts with a multi-member district, which is represented by multiple officeholders. Single-member districts are also sometimes called single-winner vo ...

in Slovyansk, but failed to do so after finishing 7th with 4.16% of the votes.Ukraine elections: 'The rebels beat me with guns'

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

(21 October 2014)Candidates and winner for the seat in constituency 47 in the 2014 Ukrainian parliamentary election
,

RBK Ukraine The RBC Group, or RosBiznesConsulting (russian: Группа компаний «РБК» РБК, РосБизнесКонсалтинг), is a Russian media group headquartered in Moscow. It was established in 1993. The company holds an infor ...

Iryna Dovhan very short bio
,

Dovhan did not take part in the

2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election Snap elections to the Ukrainian parliament were held on 21 July 2019. Originally scheduled to be held at the end of October, these elections were brought forward after newly inaugurated President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dissolved parliament on 21 Ma ...

Personal life

Iryna Dovhan is a professional beautician, a native of

and, until recently, a resident of the town. She studied economics and owned a beauty salon in her hometown, which was taken by rebels in April 2014. She is married and in 2014 had a 16-year-old daughter and a 32-year-old son.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dovhan, Iryna 1962 births 2010s missing person cases Formerly missing people Kidnapped people Living people Missing person cases in Ukraine People from Yasynuvata Pro-Ukrainian people of the war in Donbas Pro-Ukrainian people of the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine Ukrainian people taken hostage Ukrainian torture victims Ukrainian victims of human rights abuses

August 2014 incident

Aftermath

Personal life

See also

References