Ukraine parliamentary chair proposes limiting term of amnesty law

Parliamentary Chair Volodymyr Rybak proposed on Jan. 9 preparing amendments to the law granting amnesty to the EuroMaidan protesters. The law can’t be realistically applied because it doesn’t have precedents and goes beyond the nation’s legal sphere, he said. Moreover, it lacks a list of violators, as well as a list of crimes and administrative violations for which the violators should be freed. Rybak also proposed that amnesty apply only to those crimes and violations committed before Dec. 26. His statement comes after judges claimed they didn’t know how to execute the law. In particular, a Kyiv district judge left incarcerated Yaroslav Prytulenko, a protester during the Dec. 1 clashes who reportedly was arrested a far distance from the actual incident.

Andriy Dzyndzia, an incarcerated journalist with the Road Monitoring news site, was issued a notice of suspicion on Jan. 8 for allegedly injuring a traffic officer a year earlier by spitting in his face and inflicting a bruise. Road Montoring confirmed Dzyndzia spit at the officer, but added that the officer tackled him afterwards and hit him several times. “The goal of such actions is understood: if the amensty law is applied, Andriy Dzyndzia will be released, which the Internal Affiars Ministry can’t allow,” Road Monitoring stated on its website. “So if the journalist is released for ‘the storm on Bankova,’ he will be immediately imprisoned for the ‘bruise from a spit’.”

Zenon Zawada: The government is renewing its pressure against the opposition. We can expect such tactics to continue throughout the year, maintaining the political crisis.