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| Europe |
| Opposition ready to vacate seized Kiev building |
| 2014-02-16 |
| [SEATTLEPI] A top Ukrainian opposition leader said Saturday that protesters are ready to vacate the Kiev City Hall they have occupied for nearly three months -- if the government drops all charges against the demonstrators. This week, the last of the 234 protesters were released from jail as part of an amnesty. The amnesty law also calls for the opposition to vacate seized government buildings in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine. Oleh Tyahnybok, head of the nationalist Svoboda party, said Saturday the opposition is ready to vacate the Kiev City Hall, used by protesters as a dormitory, if criminal cases against protesters are dropped. He added that a final decision will have to be approved by demonstrators on Kiev's Independence Square, known as the Maidan. "If we have guarantees that right after this step the government will close all the criminal cases against participants of the protest movement, with the consent of Maidan we are ready to take this step," Tyahnybok told news hounds. The protests erupted in November after President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned a long-anticipated political and economic treaty with the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and sought a bailout loan from Russia. After police violently dispersed several rallies, the protests turned into a broader movement for human rights One man's rights are another man's existential threat. and against corruption. Yanukovych still remains popular in the Russian-speaking east and south of the country, where cultural and economic ties with Russia are strong. |
| Posted by:Fred |