London: protesters attack ban on Communist Party Ukraine’s

CAMPAIGNERS rallied outside the Ukrainian embassy yesterday [January 19] in protest at Kiev’s ban on communist politics. [Morning Star report]

A court ruled the Communist Party of Ukraine illegal on December 16 in the culmination of nearly two years of persecution after far-right politicians seized power in an EU-backed coup in February 2014.

Dozens of activists braved freezing weather to express their outrage at Kiev’s anti-democratic ban, with the Communist Party of Britain, Young Communist League (YCL), New Communist Party, CPGB-ML and Solidarity with Anti-fascist Resistance in Ukraine all represented.

“This is only the latest in what will be an escalating campaign,” declared Communist Party general secretary Robert Griffiths.

“It’s not just the party that’s being banned but left-wing symbols and even the works of Karl Marx. The first sign of a fascist regime is that it bans communists and trade unionists.”

Mr Griffiths pointed to the Odessa massacre of May 2 2014, when 46 people were burned to death by fascists in the city’s House of Trade Unions — a crime “for which nobody has yet been arrested, let alone prosecuted.”

YCL executive member Robin Talbot said he was “here to support the democratic rights of 2.6 million Ukrainians [the number who voted communist in the country’s last free elections], which have been taken away from them after a coup accepted by the EU, US and British governments.”

Ukrainian ambassador Natalia Galibarenko refused to meet the protesters or even allow them into the embassy to hand in a letter of protest, but Mr Griffiths warned that they would be back.

An early-day motion demanding that the ban is lifted will be tabled in the Commons this week.

[Report from the Morning Star]