Ukraine's parliament passed an amnesty law at a late night session on Jan. 29. The law, authored by the president's representative in parliament Yuriy Myroshnychenko, was denounced by the opposition as unacceptable because it imposes a deadline on the protesters for leaving the government buildings taken over in the past week across Ukraine.
“The law only affects the peaceful protesters,” Myroshnychenko said after the vote.
The bill was supported by 232 lawmakers of the pro-presidential majority out of the 416 registered in the session hall on Wednesday evening after President Viktor Yanukovych, at a special emergency meeting with his Party of Regions faction, threatened to disband the parliament if the faction failed to comply with his demand to rubber-stamp the bill.
Parliament speaker Volodymyr Rybak closed the parliament’s emergency session shortly after the vote.
The law, which will come into effect after the president’s signature and after it gets printed in the official media, gives the protesters 15 days to clear all government buildings across the country. The Trade Unions House, which serves as the headquarters of the protest, as well as Ukrainian House and October Palace in Kyiv are not a part of the list, though.
Protesters are also allowed to keep the camp on the central Khreshchatyk Street in Kyiv.
“The amnesty is tied to the positive dynamics of freeing the administrative buildings,” the bill’s author Yuriy Miroshnychenko said.
Deputies said that the law frees all participants of protests from both criminal and administrative responsibility on both sides, but the text of the law is not yet available on the parliament website.
Dozens of protesters are facing criminal and administrative charges for taking part in protests and clashes that began on Nov. 21, when the government took a decision to reverse preparations for a trade-and-political deal with the European Union and move closer to Russia instead.
At least two government officials are also under investigation for their role in a violent dispersal of a peaceful protest on Nov. 30.
Members of the opposition shouted “Shame!” as the law was passed, and said they will have to consult the protesters about what to do next. “We’ll call for a people’s assembly and discuss what to do,” Svoboda party leader Oleh Tiahnybok said.
Borys Kolesnikov, a former deputy prime minister, said the opposition refused to vote for the law because of poor advice one of the leaders received. “The agreement was reached, printed out, but at the last moment one of the leaders of the opposition was told his rating will crash, and after that everything got destroyed,” he said.
