KYIV: An unknown gunman shot dead on Friday a prominent anti-Russian activist in the Ukrainian port city of Odesa, Ukraine’s law enforcement authorities said.
They did not name the 31-year-old victim but Ukrainian media said it was Demian Hanul, a blogger who took part in the 2014 Maidan revolution against Ukraine’s then pro-Russian president and was once a member of the radical far-right Right Sector group.
“The incident is qualified as a premeditated murder committed by order,” the national police said on the Telegram messaging app.
Also posted on the local Telegram channel was a video clip claiming to capture the moment of the shooting. It showed a burly man holding a gun to the head of a man lying on a pavement, possibly already dead, firing, and then walking away.
Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the clip.
Ukraine’s interior minister said he had received “specific clues” to help track down the suspect and that the head of the national police was heading to Odesa to lead the investigation.
Russian state media has previously branded Hanul “a neo-Nazi responsible for the arson attack on the Trade Union House in Odessa,” a reference to deadly fighting between pro-Russian activists and supporters of Ukrainian unity in May 2014.
A Moscow court charged Hanul in absentia in April 2024 with several crimes including damaging Soviet-era war monuments for which he would have faced up to 20 years in prison.
Several media outlets reported last July that Hanul had requested Ukrainian police protection after receiving threats.
Anti-Russian activist shot dead in Odesa, Ukrainian authorities say
https://arab.news/ghxxa
Anti-Russian activist shot dead in Odesa, Ukrainian authorities say
- They did not name the 31-year-old victim but Ukrainian media said it was Demian Hanul
- Also posted on the local Telegram channel was a video clip claiming to capture the moment of the shooting
Spanish govt seeks probe into X, Meta, TikTok over AI child porn
- Socialist PM Pedro Sanchez announced on X that his government would request the public prosecutor’s office to investigate the three tech platforms for offenses “they may be committing by creating and spreading child pornography through their AI”
MADRID: Spain’s leftist government on Tuesday said it would ask prosecutors to investigate X, Meta and TikTok for possible offenses related to AI-generated child pornography, as an international backlash grows against such tools.
Separate probes in Britain, France, the European Union and California have been launched over sexualized deepfakes created by X’s AI chatbot Grok and amid a wider debate about regulating artificial intelligence.
BACKGROUND
Separate probes in Britain, France, the European Union and California have been launched over sexualized deepfakes created by X’s AI chatbot Grok and amid a wider debate about regulating artificial intelligence.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced on X that his government would request the public prosecutor’s office to investigate the three tech platforms for offenses “they may be committing by creating and spreading child pornography through their AI.”
“These platforms are harming the mental health, dignity and rights of our sons and daughters. The state cannot allow it. The impunity of (tech) giants must end,” Sanchez wrote.
One in five young people in Spain say they have been victim of fake nude images generated by AI while they were minors, with girls especially affected, Sanchez’s office said in a statement.
Sanchez is an outspoken critic of leading tech figures he calls “techno-oligarchs,” and has called for tighter regulation of their platforms to combat disinformation, violent content and pornography.
Earlier this month, he sparred with X owner Elon Musk and Telegram founder Pavel Durov after announcing a plan to ban social media for under-16s.
