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Ukraine: Muscular police action against pro-European protesters

 

In the night from Friday to Saturday, Ukrainian riot police dispersed hundreds of pro-European protesters who were still present around the Independence Square in Kiev, after a day of mobilization. Intervention with batons against the demonstrators who have camped on the site after the event Friday night against the decision of President Viktor Yanukovych not to sign the association agreement and free e exchange that was negotiating for months with the European Union (EU).

Dozens of people were injured and dozens arrested, media reports said. "The demonstration was dispersed wild way, there are dozens injured and dozens arrested," wrote the deputy Andrei Shevchenko on Twitter.

The police first fired stun grenades while towards the crowd and violently intervened to oust the occupants, pursuing some protesters in the streets nearby. Saturday 5:00 to local, part of the square was cordoned off by riot police. Friday night, a few incidents took place between pro-European protesters and police. At least four people were beaten by police, including a cameraman and a Reuters photographer. The latter, hit in the head, had blood on his face.

The European Dream "stolen"

10,000 demonstrators pro-Europeans gathered Friday on the Independence Square in accusing President Yanukovych of having "destroyed their dream of a" rapprochement with the European Union. Nine years earlier, in 2004, the same Independence Square had experienced great manifestations of the "orange revolution" against electoral fraud.

In a sea of ​​blue and yellow flags, the colors of both Ukraine and the EU, the protesters chanted "Ukraine is Europe." "Today, they stole our dream, the dream to finally live in a normal country," had told the crowd the opponent Vitali Klitschko, who wants to attend the presidential election of 2015. "Do not have signed the Association Agreement (with the EU) is the betrayal," said he added.

The top of Vilnius, Lithuania, dedicated to reconciliation between the EU and six former Soviet republics ended Friday without what was to be his greatest achievement, signed by Kiev to an association agreement with the EU. President Yanukovych has resolutely blocked attempts last-minute compromise to restart negotiations that Kiev has frozen there for a week. As the crowd sang the national anthem, cries totaled two hundred yards away, from a cons-demonstration - paradox - the place of Europe by three or four thousand supporters of the Head of State. These opponents of association with the EU, came to many Russian-speaking east of the country, listened to popular songs and several speakers welcomed the decision of the President of Ukraine. Despite the proximity of the two gatherings, no incident was reported between rival groups of demonstrators.

With Reuters and AFP