A number of Ukrainian politicians and public figures have come up with the idea of holding a referendum on banning the Communist Party and its totalitarian ideology.
“We will propose to the people the text of a bill on banning the Communist Party and other totalitarian ideology. We will propose that this bill be adopted as a directly applicable norm through a popular vote, that is, through a referendum,” former parliamentarian Yuriy Karmazin said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.
The law on referendum existing in Ukraine is very imperfect, but the initiators of the idea would like to implement it after some amendments are made to it, Karmazin said.
Apart from a referendum on banning the Communist Party, the authors of the idea propose investigating the crimes committed by the Communist regime and bringing those responsible for them to justice, he said.
Karmazin cited a resolution the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly adopted seven years ago, which condemns both the Nazi and Communist regimes.
Eduard Hurvits, a parliamentarian from the UDAR party, said an inter-faction association would be set up in the Verkhovna Rada to deal with the organization of such a referendum. In particular, it will set up headquarters in all regions of Ukraine and do other preparatory work, which he called on all democratic forces to join.
Hurvits said he was convinced that Stalin’s regime in the USSR and Hitler’s regime in Nazi Germany could be considered identical, and therefore the crimes committed by these regimes must be condemned and activities of such parties banned.
