Ukraine’s National Police removed a protest tent camp in front of the Verkhovna Rada and arrested dozens of protesters on March 3, according to a police report.
Samopomich party lawmaker Semen Semenchenko said that 112 protesters were arrested, 111 of whom had been released as witnesses in criminal cases. Thirteen demonstrators were injured, and two of them received heavy injuries, he added.
Semenchenko also said that 2,084 police officers and National Guardsmen, including 168 ex-members of former President Viktor Yanukovych’s Berkut riot police, had participated in the crackdown.
Radio Liberty reported that the police had used pepper spray against one of their journalists, Serhiy Nuzhnenko. Bohdan Kutiepov, a journalist at Hromadske television, said a police officer had kicked him and told him to f**k off after he had presented himself as a journalist.
The tent camp was set up in October on Hrushevsky Street near the parliament.
The protesters have been demanding President Petro Poroshenko’s resignation, the creation of an anti-corruption court, lifting lawmakers’ immunity from prosecution and the adoption of a fairer election law.
Initially the camp was run by the Liberation Movement, a group of veterans of the war with Russia led by Samopomich party lawmakers Semenchenko and Yegor Sobolev, and ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s Movement of New Forces, but later most of Saakashvili’s allies left the camp.
The police destroy the tent camp near the Verkhovna Rada on March 3.
The police press service published a statement that police officers were conducting searches in the tent camp in accordance with a court order.
According to Deputy Head of National Police Artem Kryshchenko, the protesters are being investigated for an alleged attempt to seize the October Palace building near Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) on Dec. 17 and for clashes with police in front of the Verkhovna Rada on Feb. 27, when 14 police officers were injured.
He said that law enforcers confiscated grenades, Molotov cocktails and smoke bombs. Semechenko denied that any grenades or weapons had been at the camp.
Pavlo Bogomazov, a lawyer for the detained activists, told the Kyiv Post the police had violated the law because they failed to present a court order to ban the protest. Under Ukrainian law, such demolition without a court order is unlawful.
Bogomazov also said that the police also violated the law by using excessive force and detaining protesters without filing detention reports. Liberation Movement activists also accused the police of taking over their property by demolishing their tents and their contents.
Sobolev said that the protesters had informed the police a day before that they had been ready to move the tent city aside from Hrushevsky Street, which had been blocked by them.
“Over the last months the tent city was under continuous attacks and provocations by riot police but protesters were able to resist the attacks,” Sobolev said. “Until today, when hundreds of police officers attacked the tent city with much fewer protesters.”
According to various news reports, the protesters set car tires on fire. Shortly after, firefighters extinguished the fire and the tent camp was completely demolished.
Sobolev also said that water jets were used against the protesters.
The police destroy the tent camp near the Verkhovna Rada on March 3.
Via a video broadcast from Europe, Saakashvili proposed reacting to the crackdown by holding a mass protest on March 18 to demand the resignation of Poroshenko, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko.
Lutsenko approved the crackdown on March 3, claiming that the protesters were being financed by tycoon Serhiy Kurchenko, an ally of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, and planning to seize the parliament building.
“As general prosecutor, I guaranteed peaceful protests since the first day of the Saakashvili demonstration… But to turn a tent camp near central authorities into a hoard of extremists, weapons and explosives is taboo.”
The protesters denied the accusations.
Saakashvili, one of Poroshenko’s fiercest critics, was deported from Ukraine to Poland on Feb. 12 without a court warrant. His detention and expulsion violated numerous laws, according to Saakashvili’s lawyers and independent ones. The authorities deny accusations of wrongdoing, claiming that Saakashvili’s deportation was legal.
Riot police force protesters to kneel in front of the Verkhona Rada on March 3 (Hvylia party).
“Today the Poroshenko regime has crossed a red line and launched an offensive against the rights and liberties of citizens,” Yuriy Derevyanko, a top official of Saakashvili’s party, said on Facebook. “The violent crackdown on the tent camp in front of the Verkhovna Rada is the Poroshenko regime’s response to citizens’ peaceful resistance. The government trampled on peaceful protesters’ right to assembly on Constitution Square, soaking it in their blood.”
Photos of protesters being forced to kneel by police officers were also published and triggered indignation on social networks.
Semenchenko posted photos of activists with injured heads.
The police destroy the tent camp in front of the Verkhona Rada on March 3.
On Feb. 27, protesters from the town of Tyachiv of Zakarpattia Oblast came to the Rada to demand Poroshenko’s resignation.
Nine people were arrested amid clashes with the police on Feb. 27. Several protesters also were injured, while video footage shows police officers were beating protesters as well as dragging a protester on the ground.
The Liberation Movement supported the Tyachiv demonstrators.
Meanwhile, Verkhovna Rada on March 1 passed a bill in the first reading on an anti-corruption court introduced by Poroshenko.
Ukrainian anti-corruption groups, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the European Union and the European Commission for Democracy through Law, better known as the Venice Commission, have criticized Poroshenko’s bill and urged him to amend it. However, he refused to do so before the first reading.
Meanwhile, thousands of protestors marched in central Kyiv on Feb. 18 to demand Poroshenko’s resignation.
The police destroy the tent camp in front of the Verkhovna Rada on March 3.
