You're reading: Thousands rally in Kyiv against political repressions (PHOTOS)

As President Viktor Yanukovych shook hands with top European Union officials in Brussels, about 4,000 opposition activists chanted under the windows of his administration in Kyiv, demanding an end to political repressions in Ukraine. 

The
protesters picked the day of the much anticipated EU-Ukraine summit to draw the attention of western leaders to  political
prisoners in Ukraine, primarily to ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who
was jailed for seven years on abuse of office charges in a case that many have
described as politically motivated.

The rally
was led by Arseniy Yatseniuk and Oleksandr Turchynov of Tymoshenko’s
Batkivshchyna party and included activists from other opposition groupings,
including Vilali Klitschko’s All-Ukrainian Alliance for Reforms (UDAR) and the
nationalist Svoboda party.  

Protesters chanted “Freedom to
Yulia!,” “Yulia – our president!,” “Prisoner out!”, waved party
flags and brandished Tymoshenko’s portraits. 

Opposition activists marched in Kyiv.

The protests gathered southands of people in Kyiv.

“We came
here to say our ‘yes’ to the European Union,” Yatseniuk told the crowd. “But
can we become a member of the European Union with Yanukovych? No. Our motto is
‘Ukraine with Europe. Ukraine without Yanukovych,’” the Batkivshchyna web-site
quoted him as saying. 

The
imprisonment of former government officials, including Tymoshenko and
ex-Interior Minister Yuriy Lutsenko, and driving others into exile has
seriously chilled Yanukovych’s relations with Europe. As a result, the annual
EU-Ukraine summit was cancelled last year – for the first time in 15 years.     

Numerous
experts have said that the fate of the jailed opposition figures will be a decisive factor in determining whether Ukraine will sign an Association Agreement with the
EU at the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, in
November. 

“Ukraine’s
progress in addressing the issue of selective justice and preventing its
recurrence” will be one of the three main areas in which Ukraine will be
assessed before the signing of the agreement, the Council of European Union
warned in a report published Dec. 10, 2012.

Kyiv Post staff writer Oksana Grytsenko can be
reached at [email protected]