You're reading: Right Sector raiders seize regional office of Ukraine Communist Party

 Activists from Right Sector have seized the headquarters of the Ukrainian Communist Party's regional branch in Rivne, the ZIK.ua Web site said. The activists demanded closing down the Communist Party and handing its offices to local authorities because of the Communist leadership's "connivance in separatist activity in the east and south of Ukraine," a story on ZIK.ua said.

 They removed literature, newspapers, portraits of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, and busts of Lenin and Josef Stalin from the regional office.

“The coordinators of the action made assurances that they would pass over the portraits and busts to a museum. The literature and printed periodic publications were burned down immediately outside the building,” ZIK.ua said.

The office was sealed off with plaques hung outside saying it was “under Right Sector protection.”

ZIK.ua said people who were inside the office when the Right Sector activists raided it offered no resistance and left. The website said there had been no violence but that verbal wrangles had broken out between two groups of women – Communist and Right Sector supporters.

Communist branch leader Oleksandr Vozniuk said the office was private property and that “there will be an appropriate reaction.”