President Viktor Yanukovych said the police action was justified after parliament, at his instigation, on Thursday revised a proposed tax code to take account of protests from the small business community.
Civilian workers, backed up by a force of about 250 police including riot police, moved into the "tent city" on Kyiv’s Independence Square at around 5 a.m. (0300 gmt), police said. They dismantled tents and took down placards denouncing the new tax plans.
"There was a decision of the district court and this was carried out," police spokesman Volodymyr Polishchuk said.
The Ukrainian leadership on Thursday backed down in the face of big street protests by thousands of small business entrepreneurs and softened a new tax code that would have made them pay higher taxes.
But a few hundred people had continued to stay overnight in the "tent city" protesting against other parts of the new tax code. Three people were briefly detained but then released, the police spokesman said.
Yanukovych later told reporters: "People expressed their point of view which had to be taken into consideration. Yesterday parliament took this into account at the initiative of the president. These recent events … are fully in line with democratic processes," he said.
