EuroMaidan Revolution
George Weigel: Gutting democracy in Ukraine
A supporter of Ukraine's Pro-Russian Party of Regions holds a placard reading \"The 2014 budget improves social standards\" during a rally outside the Ukrainian parliament during a session debating the 2014 state budget in Kiev on January 16, 2014. The Ukrainian government approved a programme of cooperation with former Soviet states that have joined the Customs Union, although rapprochement with the Russia-led bloc has fuelled continuing pro-Europe protests in Kiev. AFP PHOTO/ YURIY KIRNICHNY
Less than 72 hours after Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych seemed to back off from his Ministry of Culture’s threat to decertify the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and put this largest of the Eastern Catholic Churches in legal limbo, the Yanukovych-controlled Ukrainian parliament, on January 16, rammed through eleven new laws aimed at curbing, and eventually crushing, the EuroMaidan civic-renewal movement, muzzling its calls for political and economic reform by constraining the movement’s exercise of basic civil liberties.
