UKRAINE: Thousands anti-government protesters rally in Kiev ahead of amnesty deadline

Record ID: 214180

  • Title: UKRAINE: Thousands anti-government protesters rally in Kiev ahead of amnesty deadline
  • Date: 16th February 2014
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF OPPOSITION LEADERS ON STAGE AND CROWDS SINGING UKRAINIAN ANTHEM
  • Embargoed: 3rd March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Ukraine
  • Country: Ukraine
  • Topics: General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA39Y697PY7XD0ZHW43768VDOJU
  • Story Text: Thousands of anti-government demonstrators gathered in Kiev's Independence Square on Sunday (February 16) to protest against the government of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich ahead of an amnesty deadline. The rally took place after scores of Ukrainian anti-government protesters ended a two-month-old occupation of Kiev city hall to meet a government amnesty offer.
    Under an amnesty arrangement aimed at defusing the crisis, Ukrainian authorities have offered to drop all criminal charges against activists who have been provisionally freed as long as municipal buildings are cleared of protesters and some main roads unblocked by Monday (February 17).
    Opposition deputies said protesters have also pulled out of municipal buildings in several areas of western Ukraine, a hotbed of opposition to Yanukovich, and in one part of the southeast where the president has retained more support.
    Oleh Tyahnybok, opposition leader of the far-right Svoboda (Freedom) Party, said before the rally that the opposition had carried out its part of the deal. He said the protesters were ready to occupy all the buildings vacated again if the government did not fulfil its part of the deal.
    "We are waiting now for the general prosecutor's order and we expect him to comply with their set of conditions as stated in the amnesty law. If he doesn't issue such an order we have the right to take all these (public) buildings back under the people's control and not only these, so the authorities have to understand that," Tyahnybok said.
    Opposition sources said protesters had also agreed to ease blockages of traffic on a through road leading to government headquarters and parliament that was the flashpoint in January of violent clashes between riot police and radical activists.
    But they said barricades would largely remain in place.
    The unrest in Ukraine was sparked last November by Yanukovich when he spurned a free trade agreement long in the making with the European Union and opted for a $15 billion package of Russian credits and cheaper gas to help Ukraine's ailing economy.
    At least six people have been killed in the unrest.
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