“Titushka” safari, priests in the no-mans-land, kidnapped activists and more
Hrushevskogo battleground
21.01.2014 03:25 _ Roman Chornomaz: “The police are pressed back behind the buses. Apart from grenades, the berkuters throw rocks, chunks of ice, and Molotov Cocktails.” Apart from that, the police were using projectors to blind the protesters, shoots at journalists of ПТС channel, espreso.tv, channel “5” . Mykhailivsky monastery is tolling its bells once again. The police start shooting with metal bullets.
As coordinator of its Medical Service Oleh Musiy reports, the Headquarters of National Resistance evaluates the number of activists that sought medical attention to be 1400 as of January 20th. 2/3 of the activists have been injured on Hrushevs’kogo. The main injuries are wounds to legs and arms from bullets of traumatic guns, injuries from shrapnell. Additionally, two people have had eye injuries on January 20th, and their total number from the beginning of Hrushevs’kogo events is six people.
In the morning, peace-making monks Melhisedek, Gavriil, and Ephrem stood between the protesters and police. They appealed to both sides to stop the violence. At that time the fighting stopped. During the rest of the day, monks, priests, and other peacemakers kept their duty in the “No-mans zone” between the police and protesters.
Protesters arm themselves with helmets, respirators, goggles, wrap legs and construct vests from tourist mats. During the day, the stashes of those items in building supermarkets are sold out. There are reports about police trying to prevent citizens from buying helmets and respirators.
The police are being continually persuaded to take the side of the people:
“Titushka” thugs
21.01.2014 03:26 _ Olga Chervakova:
“Titushkas are on Volodymyrska street, around 150. ” A mercedes was noticed near the Opera theater, out of which the thugs received bats and crates of weapons, as noticed by the visitors of the “Opera” restaurant. Soon they started attacking people with bats. Klitschko is chasing titushkas. A large fight with over a hundred of them happens near McDonalds on Khmelnytskogo str. Klitschko captures two of them, interrogated and disarmed them. They said that they were brought from Kherson, the goal is to smash cars, shop windows, block roads and wreak havoc. The Automaidan engages more and more Kyivans who patrol the city streets in the night like “real sheriffs of the city”. Captured titushkas are delivered to Maidan Headquarters. Some of them tell that they sold themselves for 200 hryvnia (25USD), some were handed out marihuana together with weapons.
Kidnapped activists
Around 4AM civic activists Yuriy Verbytskiy and Ihor Lutsenko were kidnapped from Oleksandrivsk hospital, where Ihor had brought Yuriy for eye injury treatment. Around five unidentified people in black coats and hats had stormed into the room, captured Ihor and Yuriy, and took them away, leaving Ihor’s coat with his passport and his car parked outside the hospital behind. His phone is not answering, his whereabouts are unknown. The internet explodes with worries about Ihor’s wheabouts, demonstrations are held. Finally, in the evening Igor Lutsenko turns around and is undergoing medical examination in the clinic “Boris”. There is reason to believe that he has damaged internal organs, along with a damaged eye, three teeth knocked out, multiple bruises, as lawyer Yevhenia Zakrevska reports.
“Lutsenko said that it is the standard procedure for everyone who the police picks up from the hospital,” reports Zakrevska. People are taken out of the city, interrogated and severely beaten, and then taken to the police station. Ihor was taken to the forest and released, perhaps because of his fame and the hubbub caused around his disappearance.
The whereabouts of the other kidnapped activist, Yuriy Verbytskity, are still unknown. Ihor says he was beaten much more severely.
Politics
In the House of Trade Unions, the All-Ukrainian strike committee was created. It included MP’s, the leadership of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine , the Independent Trade Unions of Miners, Education and Science, Health Workers, Railroad Workers, Entrepreneurs, the Trade Union “Defence of Justice” and others. At the first meeting working bodies were established, including the Secretariat, and it was decided to create a Strike committee published edition. Regional cooperation has been established. The Committee will have representatives in every corner of Ukraine. Shortly, the time and date for the nationwide warning strike will be determined.
The Right Sector is giving Yanukovych 24 hours to leave the country or resign. “Yanukovych’s gangster regime was forced to start talking about negotiations only thanks to the protests of January 19th. But you really have to be a fool to believe in the prospects of such negotiations. The only language that the current criminal regime understands is the language of force. Therefore, we condemn and reject completely the idea of negotiations with Yanukovych in order to achieve some halfhearted requirements”, is said in the official declaration of the radical organisation “Right Sector” on their website banderivets.org.ua.
The Medjlis (representative organ) of the Crimean Tatars demands to abolish the “16th January” laws. Its Presidium demands an extraordinary session of the Rada to immediately renounce the laws passed on the 16th of January 2014 which infringe on human rights and to make decisions that facilitate the peaceful resolution of the situation, as stated in their today’s official declaration.
As deputy chairman of the Medjlis Akhtem Chiygoz notes, hundreds of Crimean Tatars are constantly leaving for Kyiv. 5-6 extra buses will depart shortly.
When asked about possible fears related to the new legislation, Akhtem Chiygoz said, “We are not frightened by the Soviet times. We have all been there. More important to us is our freedom and our rights”. As is known, the Crimean Tatars were a particularly repressed ethnic minority, deported from their homeland by Stalin after the Second World War. A member of the Medjlis of the Crimean Tatrs Abduraman Egis added that representatives of the Medjlis took part in peaceful Euromaidan demonstrations from the very beginning and will keep doing that. Apart from that, the Crimean Tatars will participate in demonstrations supporting Euromaidan happening each evening in Simferopol.
