You're reading: Scuffle erupts between demonstrators, police in Kyiv on Friday night

A scuffle erupted between demonstrators and members of the Berkut special police task force on Kyiv's Europe Square, where a protest action against the bill on the principles of the state language policy, adopted on July 3, entered its fourth day.

Lawmaker Andriy Parubiy of the BYT-Batkivschyna parliamentary faction was going to put portable toilets in place in front of the Ukraine House conference center early on Friday, but police intervened, saying that portable toilets were “small architectural structures,” whose placement must be approved by the city authorities, the daily Ukrainska Pravda reported on Friday.

“The toilets were surrounded by about 20 Berkut police and a dozen activists and they scuffled before they finally agreed to move the toilets farther away from Ukrainian House and get the authorities’ approval for their placement,” the newspaper writes.

“It’s 0600. We had a little fight with the Berkut last night. They did not allow us to set up portable toilets! What idiocy! We did put them in place after all,” Parubiy wrote in his Facebook blog.

Recounting his last night’s experiences, the deputy wrote,” Singers and poets spent the whole night with us. Doniy and Stets (the lawmakers Oles Doniy and Yuriy Stets of the Our Ukraine – People’s Self-Defense faction) hosted the concert brilliantly. We had an enjoyable third night. Congratulations!”