Donetsk: Police again forcibly dismantle protesters’ tent

On Sunday evening 5 police officers dismantled the tent of MP Anatoly Hryshchenko. His assistant, and leader of the Donetsk regional branch of the party “Civic Position”, Oleksandr Hevelev informed the media of this, stating that the police had had absolutely no right to do this since the tent was formally registered as Hryshchenko’s public reception office.

Mr Hevelev said that ten former Chornobyl clean-up workers had decided not to stop their protest hunger strike (It was announced on Sunday that some of the members of the initiative group had reached an agreement with the authorities). There were five men inside when the officers brought the tent down. The news report (at 22.10) said that the men were staying under the tarpaulin, without enough air and that the police were in no way reacting to the men’s position.

Volodymyr Derkach from the initiative group had told journalists that some of the men did not agree with the suspension of the protest and were staying at the protest site through the night. He did not specify how many.

Exactly two weeks ago, the police and Emergencies Ministry officers forcibly dismantled the main hunger strikers’ tent with protesters inside.  One of the men under the tent on that occasion was Gennady Konoplyov, a retired miner who was on hunger strike in solidarity with the former Chornobyl clean-up workers.  Mr Konoplyov was taken ill and died minutes later.

New information from http://novosti.dn.ua/details/169674/