Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Ukraine Protesters Ready To Vacate Seized Kiev City Hall

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — A top Ukrainian opposition leader said Saturday that protesters are ready to vacate the Kiev City Hall they have occupied for nearly three months — if the government drops all charges against the demonstrators.

This week, the last of the 234 protesters were released from jail as part of an amnesty. The amnesty law also calls for the opposition to vacate seized government buildings in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine.

Oleh Tyahnybok, head of the nationalist Svoboda party, said Saturday the opposition is ready to vacate the Kiev City Hall, used by protesters as a dormitory, if criminal cases against protesters are dropped. He added that a final decision will have to be approved by demonstrators on Kiev's Independence Square, known as the Maidan.

"If we have guarantees that right after this step the government will close all the criminal cases against participants of the protest movement, with the consent of Maidan we are ready to take this step," Tyahnybok told reporters.

The protests erupted in November after President Viktor Yanukovych abandoned a long-anticipated political and economic treaty with the European Union and sought a bailout loan from Russia. After police violently dispersed several rallies, the protests turned into a broader movement for human rights and against corruption. Yanukovych still remains popular in the Russian-speaking east and south of the country, where cultural and economic ties with Russia are strong.

Outside the Kiev City Hall, many protesters were determined to keep up the protests in a bid to force Yanukovych to resign.

Natalia Dydenko, a 36-year-old artist from Kiev, came to play the piano, colored in the yellow and blue of the Ukrainian national flag, near the steps leading to city hall entrance, to support the protests.

"I wanted to play here, to become part of it all," Dydenko said. "Amnesty is a good thing, but we should not give up."

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: AP  | by  MARIA DANILOVA

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