Halya Coynash: New Year in prison for peaceful protest
The continued prosecution of Road Control’s Andriy Dzyndzya and Viktor Smaliy; AutoMaidan activist Volodymyr Kadura, and Yaroslav Prytulenko suggests that the amnesty law now in force is as empty as most commitments made by the current regime.
A moving New Year address from the people to the president begins with a grandfather explaining that he would prefer not to be standing on cold Maidan [Nezalezhnosti] in Kyiv but at home with his wife and their grandchildren. He and his wife had no choice, however, but to come to Kyiv when they saw young people being beaten on Maidan. Many of those who addressed the president, Viktor Yanukovych, spoke of 2013 having shown them that in Ukraine young people can be thrown behind bars without a scrap of evidence.