Ukraine police tear down tent city at parliament, drawing criticism
5 March 2018
Hundreds of armed police officers were dispatched the
early morning of March 3 to tear down the tent city that had been pitched in
October on the street in front of Ukraine’s parliament building. The protest
included as many as 100 tents at its peak, but was reduced to a few dozen on
March 2 after parliament approved the first reading of the bill creating the
Anti-Corruption Court, thereby satisfying one of its demands. Interior Minister
Arsen Avakov decided to take advantage of the gesture to make the street open
to traffic after being closed for months.
In the process of the removal, protestors clashed with
police, resulting in the detentions of at least 100 activists, 11 of whom were
hospitalized and most of the rest released later that day. Police said they
found grenades and Molotov cocktails in the tents. Tires were burned during the
clashes as a form of protest. Avakov took responsibility for the decision,
while the Kyiv city government denied any involvement. Six pro-Western parties
condemned the crackdown as a crime and vowed to prosecute those who ordered it.
Speaking from his exile abroad, protest leader Mikheil Saakashvili, who spent
numerous nights in the tent city, called the crackdown “the final elimination
of the right to a civil position and any protest activity.”
Zenon Zawada: The Interior Ministry insisted that its goal was to make the street in
front of parliament clear for traffic and didn’t target those tents in the
adjacent park. It’s reasonable for the government to want to clear a major
thoroughfare, especially after it was blocked for more than four months. At the
same time, the protest emerged out of desperation regarding the government’s
stalling of reforms, a concern that has even been shared by top Western
officials. The crackdown only heightens the tensions between the current
government and the pro-Western opposition, which will only intensify as
elections draw nearer. The conflict has the potential to destabilize the
situation in the country further.
