Ukraine’s Femen women’s rights group late on Oct. 31 held a bare-breast protest and burned teddy bears in front of a Roshen confectionary store in Kyiv owned by President Petro Poroshenko.
A Femen activist in a Halloween costume bared her breasts, which had “sweets or impeachment” written on them.
“The protest is devoted to the greediness of the president of Ukraine, who is not ready to get rid of his sweets even under the fear of political death. While the teddy bear family from Vinnytsya is storing up fat for the winter, the people of Ukraine are sucking their paws,” Femen wrote on Facebook in a reference to Poroshenko’s political base in Vinnytsya.
The protest follows the announcement by veterans of Ukraine’s volunteer Donbas Battalion and other units on Oct. 28 that they would boycott and blockade President Petro Poroshenko’s businesses.
They said at a protest tent camp near the Verkhovna Rada that this was a response to Poroshenko’s failure to comply with their ultimatum for him to submit by late Oct. 27 a bill allowing presidents to be impeached, and a bill on the creation of an anti-corruption court. The ultimatum was set on Oct. 22.
Veterans of Russia’s war against Ukraine posted pictures and videos of them picketing in front of storage facilities of Poroshenko’s Roshen confectionary in the Kyiv Oblast town of Yagotyn and the city of Vinnytsya. They said they were planning to block trucks delivering supplies to the storage facilities.
The events come amid ongoing protests in front of the Verkhovna Rada that started when thousands rallied and set up more than 50 tents there on Oct. 17. The demonstators demand the creation of an anti-corruption court, the lifting of lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution, a fairer electoral law and a law on impeachment.
A Femen activist burns teddy bears in front of a Roshen store on Oct. 31.
In July Femen activist Anzhelina Diash was arrested for protesting against Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko in Kyiv. Diash faces two to five years in prison on hooliganism charges in what she believes to be a political case.
Femen returned to Ukraine in July after the group moved its headquarters from Kyiv to Paris in 2013, when its activists said they were escaping political persecution in the country.
The group, founded in 2008, has organized protests against former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as actions in support of LGBT and women’s rights.
Femen activists have been regularly arrested and prosecuted in criminal cases in Ukraine and other countries.
