Besides the President’s veto of the Tax Code, the protesters are demanding the dissolution of parliament, dismissal of the Prime Minister and several government figures, in particular, the Minister of Internal Affairs

Drivers report that traffic police officers have been stopping cars and asking the drivers to sign statements that they witnessed the blocking of the street by small business owners during the 22 November protest

The number of transport firms with non-roadworthy vehicles trying to leave Cherkasy, Lviv and many other cities to reach the demonstration in Kyiv would be frightening were it not so entirely improbable.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs has provided yet another extraordinary response regarding its officers’ activities during the measures taken in Kharkiv to crush peaceful efforts to stop unlawful tree-felling in Gorky Park

The Shevchenkivsk District Police Department in Kyiv has initiated a criminal investigation over the blocking of the road part of two central streets by demonstrators protesting on 22 November against the Tax Code

The Ministry of Internal Affairs sees no violations in the search of human rights activist Dmytro Groisman’s flat. It has no problem either with the arrest of Oleksiy Verentsov and Ihor Tanichkevcyh over their peaceful picket outside the Prosecutor’s Office in Lviv

On 22 November the District Administrative Court in Kyiv allowed the Kyiv City Administration’s application and effectively banned the protests against the new Tax Code in the centre of Kyiv from 22 to 26 November

Demonstrators, protesting against the Tax Code, blocked traffic along the main street in Kyiv, Khreshchatyk. Police tried in vain to stop them, and there were some scuffles

According to the organizers of the protest actions on Maidan Nezalezhnosti [Independence Square], the police prevented 140 coaches with people from various regions from reaching Kyiv for the protest against the Tax Code

For the third time in recent months, reports are coming in of the police, tax and other regulatory bodies being used to obstruct the planned protest on 22 November against the Tax Code

The Court of Appeal has failed to find any administrative offence in the actions of Ihor Tanichkevcyh, who, together with human rights activist Oleksiy Verentsov, was sentenced in October to 3 days administrative arrest

Police officers have detained one of the organizers of the mass protest outside the Verkhovna Rada. Serhiy Melnychenko says he is charged with infringing the rules for holding mass protest actions

45 European human rights organizations have expressed their concern over increased repression of human rights defenders, journalists and academics in Ukraine and call upon the Ukrainian authorities to respect their international human rights obligations.

Two recent cases of assaults against Human rights defenders in Ukraine point to a worsening climate for human rights and those who seek to defend them

The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union is disturbed by a sharp increase in unlawful actions against human rights and civic activists. The number of such cases over the last six months is far in excess of the total number of similar incidents during the previous five years.

The Kyiv administrative court considered that a protest calling for the dismissal of highly controversial Education Minister Tabachnyk during the visit of Canada’s and Russia’s Prime Ministers could have an adverse affect on the country’s image

Human rights defenders are determined to assert the rule of law and oppose the unlawful behaviour of the authorities in jailing the Lviv human rights activist, Oleksiy Verentsov and pensioner Ihor Tanyachkevych for their part in a peaceful gathering

The Venice Commission has posted a draft Joint Opinion on the Law on Peaceful Assemblies in Ukraine. It speaks of “a certain number of shortcomings that should be modified in order to achieve full clarity and compliance with the relevant European and international standards”.

On Friday morning the police and plain-clothed men several times visited the flat of the President of the human rights organization “Vartovi zakonu” [“Guards of the Law”] and have surrounded the building

Oleksiy Verentsov is the Head of an organization called “Guards of the Law” and a member of an operational group on combating corruption in the Lviv Regional Department of the Security Service [SBU]. This arrest for civic and entirely peaceful protest is highly disturbing and needs public attention. .