The violent dispersal of EuroMaidan came almost 3 years to the day that similar action was taken against the Tax Code Maidan. There are other sinister parallels, including people remanded in custody on dubious grounds in a clear attempt to warn others of likely consequences of peaceful protest..

Over the last week those in power have proved willing to use hired thugs to provoke trouble in a crowded peaceful rally attended by children. They have now violently dispersed a peaceful protest, indicating that they are incapable of understanding any other language but that of sanctions

President Yanukovych’s stated “applause” for those who have come out in support of European integration could profitably be translated into action to prevent the ever-increasing number of court bans on such protest

Cherkasy’s Acting Mayor claims that protests in support of European integration and supposed “serious provocation” could obstruct the course of the election re-run on 15 December. The ban obtained runs to 25 January next year

A Luhansk court has effectively banned all peaceful protest in the centre until 14 January 2014. The court in this way allowed an application from the Luhansk Regional Police and City Council which claimed that a ban was needed due to possible clashes between supporters and opponents of European integration

Clear signs of close coordination between the police, the city authorities and a gang of thugs probably paid to beat up peaceful demonstrators protesting against the government’s about-face on European integration

Mykolaiv breaks all records with the ban extending until Orthodox Christmas, Odessa is not far behind with a ban until New Year A number of other cities have imposed bans on tents which Berkut riot police, as well as some strange assistants, are highly proactive in enforcing

Some of the confrontation which is now being investigated occurred around the same time that unidentified individuals, some of fairly specific appearance, were being sent off in procession from outside the President’s Administration

Seven students from Lviv who were returning from the Kyiv EuroMaidan rally in support of European integration allege that they were assaulted by Berkut riot police officers

At midday on Monday municipal workers dismantled the tent in Chernihiv’s central square erected by civic organizations protesting against the government’s decision to ditch the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

Kharkiv’s Mayor Hennady Kernes has issued an entirely illegal directive banning all mass events in Kharkiv as an obvious attempt to put an end to the EuroMaidan demonstration protesting against the government’s about-face on the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

Police enlisted down-and-outs to remove the tents and detained three of the peaceful demonstrators after the administrative court issued a blanket ban on all demonstrations

This follows a ruling obligingly provided by the District Administrative Court in Kyiv from Nov 22 to Jan 7, 2014 in an attempt to restrict the large-scale protest over the ditching by Ukraine’s leaders on Thursday of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

Ukraine has lost a second case in the European Court of Human Rights this year highlighting the urgent need for legislative regulation of the right to peaceful assembly. Both cases were successfully represented in Strasbourg by Volodymyr Yavorskyy

The Centre for Social Research reports that 2013 has already broken all relative and absolute records for the number of protests against police lawlessness or failure by the police to act when needed

Another attempt is due this week to legislate guarantees for freedom of peaceful assembly. Volodymyr Yavorsky is clear that either of the two draft bills tabled is better than the present absence of proper regulation

So much for the Public Information Act: it’s taken five months to get an answer to a very simple question. Simple, yet sensitive, since it concerns the extraordinary measures taken to keep the public away from President Yanukovych’s controversial residence at Mezhyhirya.

The Interior Ministry Special Force Berkut was mainly created to fight dangerous criminals. In fact, however, its main task is increasingly becoming what is euphemistically referred to as protecting public order at protests.

The Kyiv Court of Appeal has revoked the sentence weeks after Vasyl Lyubarets, the initiator of the Vradiyvska protests against police violence and lawlessness served a 10 dayt term of imprisonment

Prominent journalists and civic activists Ihor Lutsenko and Yehor Sobolev have been jailed for 5 days over a peaceful, f unconventional, attempt to draw attention to the refusal to call new elections for Kyiv Mayor and City Council