Some 1,000 anti-government activists, enraged over sweeping new laws that stiffen penalties for mass demonstrations, marched from Independence Square to the Presidential Administration in Kyiv on Jan. 17.
The public rally, which began just after 1 p.m.
and lasted for less than an hour, came after pro-government lawmakers on Jan.
16 pushed through by a show of hands several strict new laws that make it
illegal to don helmets, pitch tents, block government buildings and construct
sounds systems at public demonstrations.
The laws also make slander a criminal offense
punishable by up to two years in prison, require all nongovernmental
organizations who receive funding from outside sources to register as “foreign
agents” and give authorities the power to prohibit access to the internet.
Opposition lawmakers attempted to block votes on
the laws by taking over the parliament rostrum, but were unsuccessful.
The
protesters, chanting “out with the gang!” marched together and carried placards
with the words “Dictatorship” and “They made it legal” scrawled across them. They
also displayed photographs of activists beaten during demonstrations over the course
of the past eight weeks, as well as excerpts from the laws passed in parliament
on Jan. 16.
Many
of those marching painted their faces with blood and bruises in solidarity of
those battered by police and taped their mouths shut to symbolize the loss of
freedom of speech under the new laws.
Yuriy
Ignatenko, 27, an actor and Kyiv native who said that he has spent every day on
Independence Square, was one of the protesters who painted his face red.
“If
Yanukovych signs these laws, then all of us… will go to jail just for being
here,” he told the Kyiv Post.
“How
is he (Yanukovych) going to find so much space in prison?” he quipped.
The protesters were stopped by special Interior
Ministry police who had cordoned off the entrance to the administration
building. But there, Levko Lukianenko, a Soviet dissident, spoke to
activists, who burst into applause and shouted “Glory to the heroes” upon his
appearance.
“What do we have now – is that Russian chauvinists
seized power in Ukraine,” Lukianenko said. “And now this (oligarchic) clan just
wants to deprive us of our human rights. They want to turn the nation into
slaves. And I’m ready to help the young people who want to change Ukraine. The
only thing to do is… to fight for your rights.”
Prior
to the march a Greek Catholic priest blessed and said a prayer with the group
on Independence Square, the nerve center of pro-European, anti-government
protests that have engulfed the country since late November.
For his part, on Jan. 17, parliament speaker
Volodymyr Rybak signed all laws passed on Jan. 16. It is unclear whether President
Viktor Yanukovych has signed them. The president’s press service told the Kyiv
Post early Friday that a statement would appear on the administration’s
official website “soon,” but did not say when exactly. As of Friday afternoon
no statement had been posted.
Christopher J. Miller and staff writer Oksana Grytsenko
can be reached at [email protected]
and [email protected],
respectively. Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova contributed to this
story.
