EuroMaidan rallies on Dec. 1. The peaceful morning - Dec. 01, 2013

Editor's Note: The Kyiv Post is providing continuous coverage of the protests in Kyiv and other cities following the government's decision on Nov. 21 to stop European Union integration and end pursuit of an association agreement. The rallies started on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) and are continuing after the Nov. 28-29 summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, at which Ukraine and the EU failed to reach any agreement. The events can be followed on Twitter using hashtags #euromaidan and #євромайдан or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EuroMaydan.

Tartak frontman performs without stage, music

Dec. 1, 1:46 p.m. – Olexandr Polozhynskiy (frontman of Tartak band) performed several songs, standing on a car that served as an improvised stage, without music, to encourage people, including performing Chervona Ruta, or “Red Rue,” a classic folk songs at such patriotic gatherings. It’s pretty chaotic. There is nothign like a stage for speakers, so it’s hard to see what will happen. People are moving along Volodymyrska Street, some of them, it seems going to St. Michael’s Square, not to the central square. — Olga Rudenko.

Protesters climb Christmas tree

Dec. 1, 1:42 p.m. – A bunch of protesters climed on the New Year’s tree on Maidan and place Ukrainian flags and opposition flags on top and on the branches. About a dozen people stand on the 20-meter high tree. No police are seen anhwhere. Maidan is full and people are still coming. — Olga Rudenko

Crowd still streaming in from all over Ukraine;

Dec. 1, 1:37 p.m. — More than 90 minutes after crowds started forming in Shevchenko Park, they continued streaming down Shevchenko Boulevard towards the main Independence Square. There is no end in sight. It’s a joyous gathering. Police are hardly anywhere in sight, taking a low-key approach. Meanwhile, thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians from all over the nation moved down the street — mothers pushing baby carriages, people calling for President Viktor Yanukovych to serve a third term in prison, singing the national anthem and, in general, happy to be there. This crowd looks like it is capable of doing everything it wants to do — and, in a very great symbolic move — have already retaken the main square that police closed off yesterday. –– Brian Bonner

More than 200,000 protesters descend on Kyiv city center, clogging main arteries

Dec. 1, 1:28 p.m. A civic rights group has estimate there are more than 200,000 protesters clogging Kyiv’s main arteries, including Independence Square, Mykhailivsky Square, Khreshchatyk Street as well as the main perpendicular streets that run into the city’s main thoroughfare, according to Nastup.

The group said: “The people have revived the Maidan and will stand here until the end.” — Mark Rachkevych

Protesters retake Maidan Nezalezhnosit, knock down fences around Christmas tree; police flee

Dec. 1, 12:37 p.m. Angry crowds knocked down all the fences surrounding the main Christmas Tree on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the site of brutal police attacks against students in the early hours of Dec. 30. A handful of police guarding the site ran off, Inetrfax-Ukraine news agency reports. Municipal workers who were working on erecting the Christmas Tree also fled, leaving some of their vehicles behind. — Katya Gorchinskaya

Crowds overflood Shevchenko Square

Dec. 1, 12:36 p.m. Crowds have overflooded Shevchenko Square and people started walking towards Khreshchatyk Street, despite a court ban to rally on that street. More people poured into the center from all directions. Looking calm and determined, many of them carry some symbols of Ukraine or European Union. Anything goes, from scarves of Ukrainian football team to ribbons, to self-made posters and even Georgian flags. — Katya Gorchinskaya

Students marched from Shevchenko Boulevard towards Bessarabska Square. They chanted ‘shame’ when they saw police officers by the Lenin monument. Protesters headed to Maidan Nezalezhnosti. — Olena Gorcharova.

Metro packed tight – then stops short of Lva Tolstoho

Dec. 1, 12:01 p.m. With the gathering in Shevchenko Park under way, those who came to the city’s center by metro experienced trains packed tight. People along the way chanted “Zeck to prison” (“Zeck” is slang for President Viktor Yanukovych) and “Put Zeck on the New Year’s tree.” They also sang the national anthem. Lva Tolstoho metro station was closed for entry, with escalators going up only. Another passenger said that the metro later stopped one place earlier — at the Olympic station — and made those people walk farther to get to the park. — Olga Rudenko and Mark Rachkevych

A civic organization makes an appeal to meeting participants to stay safe

Dec. 1, 10:29 a.m – Institute Republic, a non-government organization urged organizers of protesters on Dec. 1 to pay special attention to the safety of the participants as they started gathering in Kyiv’s center before a major rally planned for noon in Shevchenko Park.

“Berkut acted in a beastly way with students of EuroMaidan and passers-by, outside any legislative field. Police, according to the Ukrainian law, has no right whatsoever to disperse meeting,” the non-government organization said in its appeal.

Institute Republic was one of the responding parties in last night’s court hearing that banned any public gatherings of more than three people on Maidan Nezalezhnosti, on Bankova Street where the president’s administration is located, on Hrushevsky and Bohomoltsya Streets and Khreshchatyk park.

“Of course, this ruling is illegal, unjust and unreasonable not in the least because the law bans courts from making rulings that apply to a non-defined list of subjects – in other words to all those dead, living and unborn,” Oleksanra Skyba, a public relations officer at Respublika said in her emailed comments. — Katya Gorchinskaya

Crowd starts gathering at 9:30 a.m. — and Femen reappears

Dec. 1, 9:36 a.m. – There is already so much blue-and-yellow on the streets and drivers honking horns and waving national flags that you’d think there’s a big football match tonight. But there’s not — the big event is the noon rally at Shevchenko Park by the opposition to President Viktor Yanukovych. And just in time to capture the publicity is Femen, the topless sextremist group that hasn’t been seen much in Ukraine since its members fled to France, complaining of persecution at home. — Brian Bonner

Kyiv court upholds appeal to ban rallies in central Kyiv

Dec. 1, 3 a.m. The Kyiv District Administrative Court early today upheld an appeal by the Kyiv City State Administration to ban mass public rallies on Independence Square and European Square from Dec. 1 to Jan. 7, as well as in front of the Presidential Administration and Interior Ministry buildings, court administrators told the Kyiv Post. Ukrainians gathered at one time or another at all these sites over the past 11 days to protest their government’s decision to abandon closer ties and association and trade deals with the European Union.

The court did not ban demonstrations at St. Michael’s Square, where dozens sought sanctuary early on Nov. 30, following brutal police raids on the EuroMaidan camp at Independence Square. On the evening of Nov. 30, more than 10,000 people had gathered at the square in a peaceful protest against the government and earlier violent attacks. Protester will also be allowed to gather at Shevchenko Park, the court said. A planned public demonstration will get under way there at noon. — Christopher J. Miller and Mariia Shamota

Lutsenko urges big turnout at Shevchenko Park at noon today

Dec. 1, 12:10 a.m. Yuriy Lutsenko, the former interior minister and former political prisoner, encouraged the crowd on St. Michael’s Square last night. “We need to demand the resignation of the president and government now. We are not going to wait until 2015,” Lutsenko said, referring to the next scheduled presidential election. He urged everyone to come to Shevchenko Park for a noon rally today followed by a march in which EuroMaidan demonstrators hope to reclaim Independence Square as the main staging ground. Police violently dispersed the demonstrators from the square at 4 a.m. on Nov. 30, prompting international outrage directed against President Viktor Yanukovych. The EuroMaidan protests are entering their 11th day on Dec. 1, with no signs of ending soon. In fact, the police crackdown seems to have breathed new life into the demonstrators’ demands for Yanukovych’s resignation immediately and the calling of early presidential elections. The president triggered the protests by abandoning plans for European Union integration on Nov. 21, bowing to the Kremlin’s demands that he not sign a political and trade pact with the EU. — Daryna Shevchenko and Brian Bonner

Taking defense into their own hands

Dec. 1, 12:02 a.m. A group of activists on St. Michael’s Square was coaching other demonstrators in how to defend themselves against attacks by riot police. They hold plastic sticks and simulate combat and offer self-defense tips — Daryna Shevchenko

Lukyanenko urges protesters to ‘fill the streets’ of Kyiv

Dec. 1, 12:01 a.m. Levko Lukyanenko, the Ukrainian former dissident and political prisoner, tells the crowd at St. Michael’s Square to fill the streets on Dec. 1 with protesters. The thousands of people gathered continue to sing the national anthem on the hour. There was talk that Eugenia Tymoshenko, daughter of imprisoned ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko would speech, but she never appeared. — Daryna Shevchenko