You're reading: Tymoshenko supporters block Ukrainian parliamentary rostrum

The parliamentary faction of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (BYT) and All-Ukrainian Union "Fatherland" (Batkivschyna) blocked the Verkhovna Rada rostrum on Friday again.

A day earlier, the opposition acted in the same way to prevent voting on a bill canceling benefits for 16 social categories.

This time, the BYT-Batkivschyna deputies demanded that Interior Minister Anatoliy Mohyliov answer their questions as to why people’s deputies were not allowed to attend the hearings in the gas case against Tymoshenko on October 11 from his seat and not the rostrum.

BYT-Batkivschyna faction leader Ivan Kyrylenko said that on that day not only were the deputies barred from the courtroom, they were not even allowed into the courtyard, which is an affront to the parliamentarians, an Interfax correspondent reported. "We will not leave the rostrum, speak from the government loggia," the faction leader told Mohyliov.

Currently, BYT-Batkivschyna deputies are standing beside the parliamentary rostrum, chanting, "Freedom for Yulia!"

It was reported that on October 11 the Pechersky District Court in Kyiv issued a guilty verdict in the gas case against Tymoshenko, however, the parliamentarians were not let into the courtroom.

The ex-prime minister was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment.