Now the ban is on the stage for Lutsenko’s rally as well

The Dzherzhynsky District Court in Kharkiv has banned any stage being set up on Freedom Square.

According to the ruling issued by Judge Oleksandr Shestak, it is specifically for the event planned by the leader of the “Narodna samooborona” [“People’s Self-Defence”] movement Yury Lutsenko that a stage may not be set up.

The suit was lodged by the city authorities who demanded that Friday’s rally with Yury Lutsenko be banned.  As already reported, the same court banned advertising the event, and the respondent to that suit from setting up the stage.

The arguments as to whether or not the stage can be set up have been raging all day. They involve in particular the State Deputy Mykola Katerynchyk and the Secretary of the City Council Gennady Kernes.

The vans arrived on the square on Wednesday evening and a lot of the equipment has already been unloaded and is lying on the ground. Gennady Kernes is asserting that the stage cannot be set up until the court ruling 

Katerynchyk replied that the stage was for a meeting of State Deputies and Kharkiv residents and not for the rally by Yury Lutsenko’s [“People’s Self-Defence”.

Katerynchyk is waiting for documents which will confirm the deputies’ application to hold a meeting with the public on that square, and also that he hired the vehicles with the equipment.  Yesterday evening Serhiy Lutsenko (brother of the movement’s leader) said that he was responsible for the vehicle.