KIEV, August 7 (Itar-Tass) — Police are cordoning off a tent camp in Kiev put up by supporters of Ukraine’s ex-prime minister and leader of the Batkivshchyna party Yulia Timoshenko, who was taken into custody late on Friday on office abuse charges.
Police are encircling the opposition’s tent camp with metal shields, Ukraine’s UNIAN new agency reported on Sunday.
Timoshenko’s right hand in her party, Alexander Turchinov, leads the camp’s defence.
A decision to ban peace actions in front of the Pechersky District Court in Kiev was taken by the court in the early hours of Sunday. Along with this the court did not specify whether it is allowed to receive citizens in tents having the signs “public reception offices” and Timoshenko’s supporters announced their readiness to continue the practice.
The ex-prime minister’s supporters launched an open-ended action near the court building on Friday night installing about 30 tents along Kiev’s central street Kreshchatik. Twenty tents have signs reading “public reception offices” of parliamentarians from Timoshenko’s bloc.
The slogans on metal barriers near the tents read “New order – all country turned into a penal colony!” “It would be late when you are taken out of your flat!”
The court is cordoned by the special task forces. Signs on black-window police buses parked along Khmelnitsjaya Street read: “guards of honour of the Interior troops.”