As I have not seen anyone talk about this on my dash so far, I’ve decided to make this post. I can only hope that you guys read and reblog this, because my country needs as much awareness as possible right now.
These are the photos from the last 2 days from Kiev, Ukraine. Our country has been protesting against the government since November 22, when president Viktor Yanukovych and his government stopped the process of signing the free-trade treaty with the EU. Many of us saw that treaty as a beacon of hope. Ukrainians are a European nation that has been in the Soviet clutches for far too long, and we were really, really pissed that the EU treaty was terminated literally days before it was supposed to be signed. We felt betrayed, and we went to the streets.
On November 30th the riot police brutally attacked a handful of peaceful protesters who stayed on the main square in Kiev overnight. They were severely beaten and arrested simply for voicing their civic opinion. This sparked a revolution.
Since then we’ve built barricades on the streets, held rallies with hundreds of thousands protesters not only in Kiev, but all over the country. We are sick of the government that robs and beats its own people, and ignores their discontent when it’s expressed. There has been many vile attacks on our activists from the government, provocations and attempts to discredit the peaceful protest, but this whole time we’ve been hell-bent on remaining a peaceful demonstration of will.
But that stopped on January 16th, when the pairlament majority declared a full fledged war to its own people by unconstitutionally adopting new laws that virtually make dictatorship legal in Ukraine. The new laws include:
10-15 years of imprisonmant for mass disturbances
imprisonment for “spreading extremist propaganda”, whatever that means
default imprisonment of defendant witout them being present in court
easier way to strip MPs of their immunity
ban to wear helmets, masks, “large hats” during protest
ban to gather near anyone’s property
aquisition of SIM-cards only via passport
censorship of media and social networks
and a lot of other things that basically restrict the possibility of peaceful protest. They have voted for this law breaking all regulations and the Constitution. They voted for this law by SHOW OF HANDS, with votes “counted” in mere seconds.
This sparked an outrage, and led to the violent clashes depicted above. The people don’t know what else to do. We are a free nation that has been brought to its knees far too many times in our history, and we refuse for it to happen again.
Our government, courts, and police are corrupt beyond belief. They pay money to thugs to wreak havoc in the streets and beat people up. The riot police has been witnessed torturing innocent people, attacking journalists and breaking their equipment. They grab students off the steets and condemn them with “extremism”. They are doing EVERYTHING to break our will and for you guys to be unaware of their crimes.
So I wrote this, however ineplty. Please, be aware, spread this information. The EU and the USA have been “expressing deep concern” far too many times - we need action. We need real sanctions against our “president” and the criminal organisation that is the Ukrainian government, and we need more moral support and global awareness.
Read more about the protest here
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