About 200 protesters against President Petro Poroshenko rallied in Shevchenko Park on March 9 to commemorate the anniversary of Ukrainian writer Taras Shevchenko’s birthday.
The protesters demanded Poroshenko’s resignation and the creation of an anti-corruption court. They lambasted the authorities for demolishing a protest camp in front of the Verkhovna Rada on March 3 without a court warrant.
They were also waiting for Poroshenko, who was expected to lay flowers at the Shevchenko monument in the park but did not come. Instead, Poroshenko held an award ceremony at Kyiv’s Mariinsky Palace to honor the writer’s birthday.
Shevchenko, who was born in 1814 and who died in 1861, is the most prominent Ukrainian poet and writer and is often considered to be the founder of Ukrainian literature.
A part of the protesters then went to Kyiv’s Lykyanivske detention facility to demand the release of Severion Dangadze, a top official of ex-Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s party.
Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has accused Saakashvili and Dangadze of accepting funding from Serhiy Kurchenko, an ally of ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, to finance anti-government demonstrations and plot a coup d’etat. Saakashvili, who believes the case to be fabricated and political, was deported from Ukraine to Poland without a court warrant on Feb. 12. Under Ukrainian law, forced deportation is only possible if authorized by a court.
Another part of the demonstrators went to support lawmaker Yuriy Levchenko, who was beaten by hooligans on March 9 at a protest against an allegedly illegal construction project.
