You're reading: New protests kick off year

The leaders of several grassroots organizations have announced they will hold three demonstrations this month in protest of law enforcement harassment and arbitrary arrests of civic organization members.

JAN. 14

The leaders of several grassroots organizations have announced they will picket the Presidential Administration on Bankova Street on Jan. 14 to protest the recent arrests of members of nationalist groups.

Authorities in recent days have arrested more than a dozen activists from the Tryzub organization, which claimed responsibility on Dec. 28 for decapitating the bust of Joseph Stalin in Zaporizhia.

A police officer shows destruction of Josef Stalin monument in Zaporizhia on Jan.1.

However, the group — which played an active role in protests against the adoption of the tax code – denies blowing up the statue on New Year’s Eve.

JAN. 17

Government critics promise to return to the Presidential Administration on Jan. 17 to protest alleged law enforcement harassment of the leaders of anti-tax code demonstrations.

Demonstrators protest tax code at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in Kyiv last year.

According to Oleksandr Danylyuk, a leader of those protests, law enforcement authorities have been harassing activists from the tent encampment erected on Independence Square on Nov. 22, the 6th anniversary of the democratic Orange Revolution that overturned a rigged presidential election in 2004.

JAN. 22

Hundreds of people slept in the tent city until police dismantled the encampment on Dec. 3.

People celebrate Unity Day in Kyiv on Jan. 22, 2010.

On Unity Day, which marks the reunification of western and eastern Ukraine in 1919 after World War I, civic leaders and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko have called on citizens to gather in Kyiv to support demands for early parliamentary elections.

Attending a bail hearing on Jan. 4 at Kyiv’s Court of Appeals, Tymoshenko said staging a peaceful revolution to topple the president and government would be necessary if parliamentary elections are not held this year.

“It’s either fresh parliamentary elections or revolution,” Tymoshenko said.