Ukrainian police broke up an encampment of small business enterpreneurs protesting against the new tax code which would have made them pay higher taxes. But the protesters vowed to regroup and resume protests on Dec. 6.At around 5 a.m. on Kyiv's Independence Square, some 250 police representatives read out the ruling of the District Administrative Court that banned the rally. Police started dismantling the tax protester's tent city, taking down their placards denouncing the new tax legislation passed by parliament on Dec. 2."There was a decision of the district court and this was carried out," said Volodymyr Polishchuk, a police spokesperson. Three people were briefly detained but then released, according to Polishchuk.Since Nov. 22, several dozen tax code protesters have spent days and nights sleeping on 5-inch thick Styrofoam slabs in large army tents erected on Independence Square. Organizers of the nationwide protest said on Nov. 23 they would start collecting signatures calling to dissolve the parliament. A Kyiv court on Nov. 22 banned demonstrations on the square, but police have not moved in to evict the demonstrators. On Nov. 30, Yanukovych scrapped the tax code, but protest leaders aren’t satisfied with the changes.(Kyiv Post staff)
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