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Atomic Bomb Dome, １丁目-１-１０ 大手町 中区 広島市 広島県

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日本、東京都新宿区西早稲田２丁目３−１８ アクティブ・ミュージアム「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」

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Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace

It focuses on sex slavery which was conducted by Japanese military during the WW2. Countless of women from Japan and other neighboring Asian countries were kidnapped or deceived and forced to start sex work in comfort stations. Those women did not get paid for that. They were treated brutally, and their fundamental rights were ignored. Lots of women suffered from bass mental health and even committed suicide. If they resisted to the military, they were killed relentlessly.

The museum reminds us of the tragic event, which some of the textbooks do not even tell students about. It makes us think deep about how important human rights are.

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アクティブ・ミュージアム 女たちの戦争と平和資料館（wam）

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アクティブ・ミュージアム「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」(wam)は、日本で初めて戦時性暴力、とりわけ日本軍性奴隷制（日本軍「慰安婦」制度）に焦点をあてた記憶と活動の拠点として、2005年8月にオープンしました。

wamは、日本軍性奴隷制の責任者を裁いた「女性国際戦犯法廷」（2000年、東京）を発案し、実現に奔走した故 松井やよりさん の遺志を受け継ぎ、①ジェンダー正義の視点で戦時性暴力に焦点をあて、②被害と同時に加害責任を明確に、③平和と非暴力の活動の拠点を目指し、④民衆運動として、⑤国境を越えた連帯活動を推進する、という5つの基本理念を持って運営しています。

wamでは特別展やセミナーの開催、調査と記録の保存・公開、連帯活動をとおして、多くの方が戦争と暴力を生き抜いた女性たち一人ひとりの存在と人生に出会い、日本軍性奴隷制の実態と加害責任に向き合ってほしいと願っています。

wamの活動に対して、2007年には パックス・クリスティ平和賞、2013年には 日本平和学会・平和賞 が授与されました。暴力と差別のない平和な未来を実現するため、私たちはみなさんとともに歩んでいきます。

◆wamとは？◆
英語名Women's Active Museum on War and Peaceの最初の3語（Women's Active Museum）の頭文字を取って、資料館の略称にしています。「ワム」と発音します。
●正式名称：アクティブ・ミュージアム「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」（wam）
●可能な短縮名称：「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」（wam）
●一般的な略称：wam
を必要に応じて使っています（wamは小文字です）。

沿革

2002年

12月12日

任意団体「女たちの戦争と平和人権基金」を設立建設に向けて１億円キャンペーン開始

2003年

6月3日

特定非営利活動法人の認証取得

10月4日

特定非営利活動法人 女たちの戦争と平和人権基金 設立記念シンポジウム「戦時性暴力をなぜ記録するのか」

2004年

10月9日

国際シンポジウム「加害の歴史を記憶する～ドイツ・記憶の保存と「過去」の克服～」（明治大学リバティ・ホール）

12月21日

資料館建設のためのチャリティ・イベント「つながってつくろう！暴力のない世界」開催（江戸東京博物館ホール）

2005年

2月

資料館開館予定地が、早稲田奉仕園敷地内キリスト教視聴覚センター（ＡＶＡＣＯビル）２階に決定

6月

早稲田奉仕園敷地内・AVACOビルの２階で改装工事始まる

8月

第1回特別展「女性国際戦犯法廷のすべて」展（～11月）

8月1日

アクティブ・ミュージアム「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」開館

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アクティブ・ミュージアム 女たちの戦争と平和資料館（wam）

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wamについて | アクティブ・ミュージアム 女たちの戦争と平和資料館（wam）

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
アクティブ・ミュージアム「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」(wam)は、日本で初めて戦時性暴力、とりわけ日本軍性奴隷制（日本軍「慰安婦」制度）に焦点をあてた記憶と活動の拠点として、2005年8月にオープンしました。 wamは、日本軍性奴隷制の責任者を裁いた「女性国際戦犯法廷」（2000年、東京）を発案し、実現に奔走した故 松井やよりさん の遺志を受け継ぎ、①ジェンダー正義の視点で戦時性暴力に焦点をあて、②被害と同時に加害責任を明確に、③平和と非暴力の活動の拠点を目指し、④民衆運動として、⑤国境を越えた連帯活動を推進する、という5つの基本理念を持って運営しています。 wamでは特別展やセミナーの開催、調査と記録の保存・公開、連帯活動をとおして、多くの方が戦争と暴力を生き抜いた女性たち一人ひとりの存在と人生に出会い、日本軍性奴隷制の実態と加害責任に向き合ってほしいと願っています。 wamの活動に対して、2007年には パックス・クリスティ平和賞、2013年には 日本平和学会・平和賞 が授与されました。暴力と差別のない平和な未来を実現するため、私たちはみなさんとともに歩んでいきます。 ◆wamとは？◆ 英語名Women's Active Museum on War and Peaceの最初の3語（Women's Active Museum）の頭文字を取って、資料館の略称にしています。「ワム」と発音します。 ●正式名称：アクティブ・ミュージアム「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」（wam） ●可能な短縮名称：「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」（wam） ●一般的な略称：wam を必要に応じて使っています（wamは小文字です）。 2002年 12月12日 任意団体「女たちの戦争と平和人権基金」を設立建設に向けて１億円キャンペーン開始 2003年 6月3日 特定非営利活動法人の認証取得 10月4日 特定非営利活動法人 女たちの戦争と平和人権基金 設立記念シンポジウム「戦時性暴力をなぜ記録するのか」 2004年 10月9日 国際シンポジウム「加害の歴史を記憶する～ドイツ・記憶の保存と「過去」の克服～」（明治大学リバティ・ホール） 12月21日 資料館建設のためのチャリティ・イベント「つながってつくろう！暴力のない世界」開催（江戸東京博物館ホール） 2005年 2月 資料館開館予定地が、早稲田奉仕園敷地内キリスト教視聴覚センター（ＡＶＡＣＯビル）２階に決定 6月 早稲田奉仕園敷地内・AVACOビルの２階で改装工事始まる 8月 第1回特別展「女性国際戦犯法廷のすべて」展（～11月） 8月1日 アクティブ・ミュージアム「女たちの戦争と平和資料館」開館

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מחסום קלנדיה

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מחסום קלנדיה

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מחסום קלנדיה

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Qalandia check point

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Qalandia checkpoint ( Arabic: حاجز قلنديا, Hebrew: מעבר קלנדיה) at Qalandia is the primary Israel Defense Forces checkpoint between the northern West Bank and Jerusalem. It is known for frequent demonstrations against the occupation.[2] The checkpoint is used by the Israeli military to control Palestinian access to East Jerusalem and Israel. Israel requires Palestinians to have permits to pass through the checkpoint to East Jerusalem and Israel for their work, medical care, education or for religious reasons.[3][4][5] According to B'Tselem, most of the people who use the checkpoint are residents of East Jerusalem separated from the city by the Israeli West Bank barrier.[6]

Garcia-Navarro, Lourdes (2012-07-26). Latest Target For Palestinians' Protest? Their Leader. NPR, 26 July 2012. Retrieved from ^ http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-207480084.html Archived 2014-06-10 at the Wayback Machine.

Garcia-Navarro, Lourdes (2012-07-26). Latest Target For Palestinians' Protest? Their Leader. NPR, 26 July 2012. Retrieved from ^ http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-207480084.html Archived 2014-06-10 at the Wayback Machine

^ OCHA Commercial Crossings Archived 2016-03-14 at the Wayback Machine report of 22 January 2008

Hubbard, Ben, (^ Associated Press), "Checkpoint misery epitomizes a Mideast divide", NBC News, February 21, 2010.

^ "Qalandiya Checkpoint, March 2014: An obstacle to normal life". B'Tselem. March 2014.

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Qalandia checkpoint ( Arabic: حاجز قلنديا, Hebrew: מעבר קלנדיה) at Qalandia is the primary Israel Defense Forces checkpoint between the northern West Bank and Jerusalem. It is known for frequent demonstrations against the occupation.[2] The checkpoint is used by the Israeli military to control Palestinian access to East Jerusalem and Israel.

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יד ושם, ירושלים, ישראל

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יד ושם, ירושלים, ישראל

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יד ושם, ירושלים, ישראל

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Holocaust museum

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Discover

What was the Holocaust?

Thematic and Chronological Narrative

About the Holocaust explores the history of the Holocaust thematically and chronologically. Each chapter in the narrative is divided into subchapters with explanatory texts. Useful related resources accompany the texts and may include photos, video testimonies, documentary footage, documents, artifacts and art. More...

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Yad Vashem. The World Holocaust Remembrance Center

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Ken Saro-Wiwa Memorial Park, Bane, Nigeria

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Ken Saro-Wiwa Memorial Park, Bane, Nigeria

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Ken Saro-Wiwa Memorial Park, Bane, Nigeria

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Ken Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian Writer and activist and leader of a nonviolent campy against the Royal Dutch Shell company and the Nigerian government. He was sentenced to death and executed together with 6 Other Ogoni youths by the military government of General Sani Abacha, after their protest against the neglect of his people (Ogoni people), who due to the large deposit of crude oil and the activities of multinational corporations who In the process of extracting Crude oil, pollute the water and environment of the local people due to indiscriminate petroleum waste dumping. Their execution was greeted with strong condemnation both locally and internationally, and led to Nigeria at the time being treated as a Pariah state in the International society.

The Ken Saro-Wiwa Memorial Park is a project of the Ken Saro-Wiwa Memorial Foundation. It is presently funded by the Wiwa Family, with contribution from FOWA-USA. The Park has the burial site of Ken Saro-Wiwa and when completed, will extend to the nearby river with a mangrove forest and wetland area. The Land on which the Ken Saro-Wiwa Park sits was donated by the Bane Community in Khana Local Government Area of Ogoni. Apart from the beautiful flowers and trees. The Park will house Library, Museum, hall and the exhibition centre. Visitors to the Park can expect to experience and appreciate the beauty of nature. Find space to learn, meditate and hopefully yield to Inspiration from the comminity that produced a man of ideas. As you go through the Park, spare a movement to reflect on the inherent beauty of the Ogoni environment. Think about the industry and vibrant culture of the Ogoni people. Breathe in the fresh air and the fragrance of the flowers and say “never again”

Source: https://www.kensarowiwafoundation.org/memorial-park/

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Memorial Park - Ken Saro Wiwa Foundation

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The Ken Saro-Wiwa Memorial Park is a project of the Ken Saro-Wiwa Memorial Foundation. It is presently funded by the Wiwa Family, with contribution from FOWA-USA. The Park has the burial site of Ken Saro-Wiwa and when completed, will extend to the nearby river with a mangrove forest and wetland area.

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"חסד אחרון" - קבר חסיד אומות עולם - פיוטר בודניק, סמטת התפוח, כפר ורבורג, ישראל

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"חסד אחרון" - קבר חסיד אומות עולם - פיוטר בודניק, סמטת התפוח, כפר ורבורג, ישראל

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"חסד אחרון" - קבר חסיד אומות עולם - פיוטר בודניק, סמטת התפוח, כפר ורבורג, ישראל

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Resting place of Piotr Budnik, Righteous among the Nations.

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IDEA - ALM : פיוטר בודניק, חסיד אומות העולם שעלה לישראל.

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פיוטר בודניק (Piotr Budnik), חסיד אומות העולם שעלה לישראל.

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A street named after a famous independent journalist and a monument to all journalists who died in line of work

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Georgiy Ruslanovych Gongadze[a] (21 May 1969 - 17 September 2000)[1] was a Georgian- Ukrainian journalist and film director who was kidnapped and murdered in 2000 near Kyiv. He founded the internet newspaper Ukrainska Pravda along with Olena Prytula in 2000.

The circumstances of his death became a national scandal and a focus for protests against then- President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma. During the Cassette Scandal, audiotapes were released on which Kuchma, Volodymyr Lytvyn and other top-level administration officials are heard discussing the need to silence Gongadze for his online news reports about high-level corruption. Former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko died of two gunshot wounds to the head on 4 March 2005, just hours before he was to begin providing testimony as a witness in the case. Kravchenko was the superior of the four policemen who were charged with Gongadze's murder soon after Kravchenko's death.[2] The official ruling of suicide was doubted by media reports.[2]

Three former officials of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's foreign surveillance department and criminal intelligence unit[3] (Valeriy Kostenko, Mykola Protasov and Oleksandr Popovych) accused of his murder were arrested in March 2005 and a fourth one (Oleksiy Pukach, the former chief of the unit[3]) in July 2009.[4] A court in Ukraine sentenced Protasov to a sentence of 13 years and Kostenko and Popovych to 12-year terms March 2008 (the trial had begun January 2006[5]) for the murder. Gongadze's family believe the trial had failed to bring the masterminds behind the killing to justice.[6] No one has yet been charged with giving the order for Gongadze's murder.[5]

Born in Tbilisi, at the time the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union, Gongadze was the son of Ruslan Gongadze, a Georgian architect, and Olesya Korchak, a Ukrainian dentist and a native of Lviv. His parents met in Lviv, where they studied in university and eventually married. In 1967, the Gongadze family moved to Tbilisi. Georgiy was born as a twin, but his brother was kidnapped from the hospital soon after their birth. When Gongadze was six years old, his parents divorced. His father later remarried and had another son with his second wife. His mother did not remarry, and continued to live and work in Tbilisi until 1994.[7]

During his school years, Gongadze was an outstanding athlete, and was part of the Soviet reserve Olympic team for the 100 and 200 metres. In addition to his native Ukrainian, he learned to speak Russian, Georgian, and English. In 1986 he enrolled in the Foreign Languages Institute in Tbilisi with a specialization in English, but in 1987 he was drafted into the Soviet Border Troops, serving in Turkmenistan on the border with Iran. His mother said that she had to pay to avoid him being sent to Afghanistan to fight in the Soviet-Afghan War.[7]

Dissolution of the Soviet Union Edit

Around that time, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev started his reforms of perestroika and glasnost. The reforms sped up the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Trying to preserve the Soviet state, several armed and civil conflicts arose in the Soviet Union, among them the April 9 tragedy in which Soviet troops killed 21 unarmed civilians. This radicalized many Georgians, including Gongadze.[7]

In May 1989, Gongadze was discharged from the Border Troops. He and his father both joined the national movement "For Free Georgia"; Georgiy became its spokesperson, while Ruslan became the leader. In 1989 and 1990, Georgiy travelled to the Baltic states and Ukraine in an attempt to drum up foreign support for Georgia's independence from the Soviet Union. As part of his tour, in September 1989 he attended the first congress of the People's Movement of Ukraine in Kyiv, where he represented For Free Georgia.[7]

Gongadze also attended Chervona Ruta, the first non-communist music and youth festival, held in September 1989 in Chernivtsi. At the festival, he met Mariana Stetsko, whom he married in 1990, and settled in Lviv, where he found a job as a teacher of English and physical education. While working, Gongadze also studied at the Romano-Germanic Languages Faculty of the University of Lviv. On 24 August 1991, following the Declaration of Independence of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada announced that all residents of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic were considered to be citizens of Ukraine.[7]

In 1992, Gongadze founded a Georgian Culture Association in Lviv, named after the Bagrationi dynasty, which served as an informational centre. During the registration of the organization in government offices, Gongadze met Myroslava Petryshyn, his future second wife. The two of them wrote an article titled "Tragedy of Leaders" ( Ukrainian: Трагедія лідерів) about the Georgian Civil War, which was published in the Lviv newspaper Post-Postup in 1992. Later in 1992, Gongadze returned to Tbilisi again to visit his mother, who continued to work in a hospital as a nurse. At the time, he planned to leave political activism and start a business. However, after speaking with several people, he changed his mind, while his mother encouraged him to write about the victims of the Georgian Civil War. Gongadze received a camera from his mother, and filmed a documentary about the Georgian Civil War, entitled The Pain of My Land ( Ukrainian: Біль моєї землі).[7] In February 1993, the film was shown on the Ukrainian channel UT-3.

Gongadze returned to Lviv to perform his "diplomatic mission" in active support of Georgia in inter-ethnic conflicts. However, he was only able to find a marginal group of supporters willing to fight in Georgia, from the far-right Ukrainian National Assembly - Ukrainian People's Self-Defence. Gongadze repeatedly visited UNA-UNSO gatherings in an attempt to find Ukrainians willing to fight. The UNA-UNSO, with its self-stated goal of "exiling communists and criminals from Ukraine and overpowering Russian expansionism," coincided with those of Georgian nationalists fighting Russian-backed separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In July 1993, the UNA-UNSO battalion "Argo", led by Dmytro Korchynsky arrived to Tbilisi and was ready for fight in Abkhazia.[7]

Gongadze, however, did not return to Georgia with the UNA-UNSO, but remained in Ukraine, where his father was undergoing cancer treatment in Kyiv. He did not survive treatment, and died on 5 August 1993, at the age of 49. Following his father's death, Gongadze returned to Tbilisi to bury him. Afterwards, he began filming a new documentary, this one about Ukrainian fighters in Abkhazia. He obtained funds for the documentary by selling his military-issued AK-47.[7]

By the time filming began, Russian-backed Abkhazian separatists had taken much of the lands they sought to control, and had encircled the region's administrative centre, Sukhumi. In September 1993, in exchange for a ceasefire, the government of Georgia agreed to pull its troops and heavy armament from Sukhumi. However, Abkhazian forces soon broke the ceasefire and launched an assault on the city, which was protected only by an army of irregular detachments. President of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze, who also was present during the siege, appealed to the President of Russia Boris Yeltsin to stop the attack, but Yeltsin chose to ignore it.[7]

Gongadze was quickly taken to a field hospital, where he brought attention to himself by requesting that someone return to the field, so that his bag of video cassettes would not be lost. In the field hospital, Gongadze also met Konstantin Alania, a local resident fighting among Georgian troops. That night, Gongadze and several other seriously wounded fighters were sent to Tbilisi on a plane shortly before the city fell to Abkhazian troops. Alania was left behind to continue fighting, and later managed to escape with some other militants, withdrawing through mountain corridors. In 1995, Alania left Georgia for Lviv, and coincidentally met Gongadze again. The two remained close friends for the remainder of Gongadze's life.[7]

In Tbilisi, Gongadze's treatment continued, and he was tended to by his mother, still working in the military hospital. However, the situation remained tense due to food insecurity throughout Georgia. His mother tried to send him away from Georgia, but did not have enough money, as the government had not had enough money to pay hospital staff since December 1991. Gongadze's mother managed to raise enough funds through friends and relatives and, after two weeks in Tbilisi, Gongadze returned to Lviv in October 1993, with his mother staying behind. In Ukraine, Gongadze finished production of his new documentary, and it was shown on Ukrainian television under the name Shadows of War.[7]

From 1996 to 1997, Gongadze worked for the Ukrainian television channel STB. He worked for the Kyiv-based radio station Kontynent, on which he had his own show called First Round with Georhiy Gongadze. His strongly independent line soon attracted hostility from the increasingly authoritarian government of President Leonid Kuchma; during the October 1999 presidential election, his commentaries prompted a call from Kuchma's headquarters to say "that he had been blacklisted to be dealt with after the election". In 1999, he was a spokesman for Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine leader Nataliya Vitrenko. Visiting New York City in January 2000 with other Ukrainian journalists, he warned of "the strangulation of the freedom of speech and information in our state".

In April 2000, Gongadze co-founded a news website, Ukrainska Pravda ( lit.  'Ukrainian Truth'), as a means of sidestepping the government's increasing influence over the mainstream media. He observed that following the muzzling of a prominent pro-opposition newspaper after the election, "today there is practically no objective information available about Ukraine". The website specialized in political news and commentary, focusing particularly on President Kuchma, the country's wealthy "oligarchs" and the official media.

In June 2000, Gongadze wrote an open letter to Ukraine's chief prosecutor about harassment from the Security Service of Ukraine directed towards himself and his Ukrainska Pravda colleagues and apparently related to an investigation into a murder case in the southern port of Odessa. He complained that he had been forced into hiding because of harassment from the secret police, that he said he and his family were being followed, that his staff were being harassed, and that the SBU were spreading a rumour that he was wanted on a murder charge.[8]

Gongadze disappeared on the night of 16 September 2000, after failing to return home. Foul play was suspected from the outset. The matter immediately attracted widespread public attention and media interest. Eighty journalists signed an open letter to Kuchma urging an investigation and complaining that "during the years of Ukrainian independence, not a single high-profile crime against journalists has been fully resolved". Kuchma responded by ordering an immediate inquiry. This inquiry however, was viewed with scepticism. Opposition politician Hryhoriy Omelchenko stated that the disappearance had coincided with Gongadze receiving documents on corruption within the president's own entourage. The Verkhovna Rada set up a parallel inquiry run by a special commission. Neither investigation produced any results.

Gongadze tried to be like a normal reporter, he didn't try to be a hero. But in Ukraine it's a brave activity being a journalist.

Serhiy Leshchenko, Ukrainska Pravda editor (September 2004)[9]

Two months later, on 3 November 2000, a body was found in a forest in the Tarashcha Raion of Kyiv Oblast, some 70 km (43 mi) outside Kyiv, near the city of Tarashcha. The corpse had been decapitated and doused in acid, apparently to make identification more difficult; forensic investigations found that the acid bath and decapitation had occurred while the victim was still alive. The Russian-edited, Russian-language Ukrainian newspaper Segodnya ("Today") reported that Gongadze had been abducted by policemen and accidentally shot in the head while seated in a vehicle, necessitating his decapitation (to avoid the bullet being recovered and matched to a police weapon). His body had been doused in petrol which had failed to burn properly, and had then been dumped.[10] A group of journalists first identified it as being that of Gongadze, a finding confirmed a few weeks later by his wife Myroslava. In a bizarre twist, the corpse was then confiscated by the militsiya and resurfaced in a morgue in Kyiv. The authorities did not officially acknowledge that the body was that of Gongadze until the following February and did not definitively confirm it until as late as March 2003. The body was eventually identified and was to be returned to Gongadze's family to be buried two years after his disappearance. However, the funeral never took place. As of 23 June 2006 Gongadze's mother refused to accept the remains offered as it was not the body of her son.[11] While visiting Kyiv in July 2006, Gongadze's widow Myroslava emphasized that the funeral had now become a solemn family issue and the date of the funeral would soon be appointed.

On 28 November 2000, opposition politician Oleksandr Moroz publicised secret tape recordings which he claimed implicated Kuchma in Gongadze's murder. The recordings were said to be of discussions between Kuchma, presidential chief of staff Volodymyr Lytvyn, and Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, and were claimed to have been provided by an unnamed SBU officer (later named as Major Mykola Mel'nychenko, Kuchma's bodyguard). The conversations included comments expressing annoyance at Gongadze's writings as well as discussions of ways to shut him up, such as deporting him and arranging from him to be kidnapped and taken to Chechnya. Killing him was, however, not mentioned and doubt was cast on the tapes' authenticity, as the quality of the recordings was poor. Moroz told the Verkhovna Rada that "the professionally organised disappearance, a slow-moving investigation, disregard for the most essential elements of investigation and incoherent comments by police officials suggest that the case was put together."

In September 2001, the American detective agency Kroll Inc., contracted by the pro-Kuchma political party Labour Ukraine, carried out a six-month investigation and concluded that Kuchma had nothing to do with the murder of Gongadze.[12][13]

The affair became a major political scandal (referred to in Ukraine as the " Cassette Scandal" or "Tapegate"). Kuchma strongly denied Moroz's accusations and threatened a libel suit, blaming the tapes on foreign agents. He later acknowledged that his voice was indeed one of those on the tapes, but claimed that they had been selectively edited to distort his meaning.[14]

In November 2005, upon complaint of Gongadze's widow, the European Court of Human Rights found Ukraine to violate right to life, right to effective remedy and prohibition of degrading treatment.[15]

The affair became an international crisis for the Ukrainian government during 2001, with the European Union expressing dissatisfaction at the official investigation, rumours of Ukrainian suspension from the Council of Europe, and censure from the OSCE, which described Gongadze's death as a case of "censorship by killing" and castigated the "extremely unprofessional" investigation.[16] Mass demonstrations erupted in Kyiv in February 2001, calling for the resignation of Kuchma and the dismissal of other key officials. He did sack the head of the SBU, Leonid Derkach, and the chief of the presidential bodyguard, Volodymyr Shepel, but refused to step down.[16] The government invited the FBI to investigate, though it does not appear that this offer was ever taken up. The protests were eventually forcibly broken up by the police.

In May 2001, Interior Minister Yuriy Smirnov announced that the murder had been solved-it was attributed to a random act of violence committed by two "hooligans" with links to a gangster called "Cyclops". Both of the killers were said to now be dead. The claim was dismissed by the opposition and by the government's own Prosecutor-General, whose office issued a statement denying Smirnov's claims.[17]

Mass protests again broke out in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in September 2002 to mark the second anniversary of Gongadze's death. The demonstrators again called for Kuchma's resignation but the protests again failed to achieve their goal, with police breaking up the protesters' camp.

The prosecutor of Tarascha Raion, where Gongadze's body was found, was convicted in May 2003 for abuse of office and falsification of evidence. Serhiy Obozov was found guilty of forging documents and negligence in the investigation and was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. However, he was immediately released due to a provision of Ukraine's amnesty laws.[18]

In June 2004, the government claimed that a convicted gangster identified only as "K" had confessed to Gongadze's murder, although there was no independent confirmation of the claim. The ongoing investigation received a setback when a key witness died of spinal injuries apparently sustained while in police custody.[19]

Gongadze's death became a major issue in the 2004 Ukrainian presidential election, in which the opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko pledged to solve the case if he became president. Yushchenko did become president following the subsequent Orange Revolution and immediately launched a new investigation, replacing the Prosecutor-General.

Arrest and trial of three former policemen and death of Kravchenko Edit

On 1 March 2005, President Viktor Yushchenko announced that the journalist's suspected killers had been arrested.[21] Prosecutor-General Svyatoslav Piskun announced the following day that the case had been solved, telling Ukrainian television that Gongadze had been strangled by employees of the Interior Ministry. Two of the alleged killers were said to be senior policemen working for the Interior Ministry's Criminal Investigations Directorate (CID).[22] Former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko, one of those recorded with Leonid Kuchma in the Cassette Scandal, was also said to be under investigation. The two police colonels accused of the killing have been detained and a third senior policeman, identified as CID commander Oleksiy Pukach, was being sought on an international arrest warrant.

On 4 March, Kravchenko was found dead in a dacha in the elite residential area of Koncha-Zaspa, outside Kyiv. He had died from apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds, though some speculated that he might have been assassinated to prevent him from testifying as a witness. Hryhory Omelchenko, who chaired the parliamentary committee that investigated the Gongadze case, told the New York Times that Kravchenko had ordered Pukach to abduct Gongadze on President Kuchma's orders. Kuchma himself has denied this allegation but has since been interviewed by investigators. Kravchenko left an alleged suicide note: "My dear ones, I am not guilty of anything. Forgive me, for I became a victim of the political intrigues of President Kuchma and his entourage. I am leaving you with a clear conscious, farewell."[2]

In April or May 2005, Piskun released more details of the ongoing investigation. He told the press that after Gongadze was murdered, a second group disinterred him and re-buried him where he was eventually found, in the constituency of Socialist Party leader Oleksandr Moroz. According to Piskun, the aim was to undermine the government (led by Viktor Yushchenko when he was still Prime Minister). The second group was part of or allied with the United Social Democratic Party of Ukraine (SDPUo), a pro-oligarch party which had been hit hard by Yushchenko's crackdown on corruption and therefore wanted to see his government toppled. According to the journal Ukraina Moloda (14 April 2005), the SDPUo moved Gongadze's body in order to discredit President Leonid Kuchma and force early elections, which could have led to party leader Viktor Medvedchuk succeeding Kuchma.

The trial against three former policemen charged with the killing of Gongadze began on 9 January 2006. The other main suspect, ex-police officer, Oleksiy Pukach was believed to have fled abroad and therefore charged but not on trial. No-one had been charged for ordering the murder. On the day the trial started Gongadze's widow, Myroslava Gongadze commented on the fact that government officials had yet to be punished for organising Gongadze's murder, saying, "They are known and they should be punished, just the same as those who will be sitting in the dock today".

In mid-March 2008, the three former police officers were sentenced to prison for the murder of Gongadze. Mykola Protasov was given a sentence of 13 years, while Valeriy Kostenko and Oleksandr Popovych were each handed 12-year terms. But so far the investigations have failed to show who ordered the murder.[6]

Arrest and trial of Oleksiy Pukach Edit

On 22 July 2009, Oleksiy Pukach, one of the chief suspects, was arrested in Zhytomyr Oblast.[23][24] The former chief of the main criminal investigation department at the Ukrainian Interior Ministry's foreign surveillance unit[3] had lived in the house of Lidia Zagorulko who had told her neighbours that Pukach was the brother of her dead husband and that he was a former sea captain.[25] Pukach had lived there with his real second name and original documents.[26] At first it was reported and that he had implicated senior political figures in the murder[27] and was ready to show the place where the journalist's head was hidden, but this was denied two days after his arrest by his lawyer.[28] According to the lawyer, Pukach was not supposed to provide this information to the investigators.[28] Prosecutor-General Oleksandr Medvedko refused to comment whether Pukach named those who ordered the murder or not, saying a "secret investigation" was underway.[3]

On 28 July 2009, Ukrainian media reported that the remains of Gongadze's skull were found near Bila Tserkva, in a location specified by Pukach.[29] According to the Prosecutor General's Office they did find fragments of a skull there that may belong to Gongadze.[4][30]

A request by Myroslava Gongadze to replace deputy prosecutor general Mykola Holomsha and investigator Oleksandr Kharchenko because of their insufficient professionalism and because they were unable to withstand political pressure and speculation surrounding the case was rejected on 30 July 2009.[31][32] Her request to replace Pukach's lawyer was also denied on 28 October 2009.[33]

On 20 November 2009, Gongadze's mother Olesya gave consent to an examination of fragments of the skull found in late July 2009, under the condition she could take fragments of the skull for private DNA examination she planned to conduct at a private foreign laboratory after the 2010 Ukrainian presidential election.[34] In September 2010, she stated that, in her opinion, the fragments of the skull found in July 2009 had nothing to do with her son.[35]

On 3 December 2009, Pukach's detention was extended by two months.[36] On 6 December 2009, Mykola Melnychenko accused Volodymyr Lytvyn of ordering the murder of Gongadze in 2000, but offered no proof to back up the claim. A spokesperson for Lytvyn dismissed the claims as part of his presidential election campaign.[37]

The Prosecutor General's Office of Ukraine plans to complete its investigation into the case of Oleksiy Pukach by the end of the summer of 2010.[38][39]

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Oleksandr Medvedko stated on 17 June 2010 that skull fragments found near Bila Tserkva in July 2009 were those of Gongadze.[40]

On 14 September 2010, Ukraine's Office of the Prosecutor General issued a statement stating that prosecutors had concluded that former Interior Minister Yuriy Kravchenko had ordered Pukach to carry out the murder, and stating that Pukach had confessed to the murder.[41] According to Gongadze's widow, Myroslava Gongadze, "Kravchenko had had no grounds for such actions"; she believed that several people ordered the killing of the journalist.[42] According to Georgiy Gongadze's mother, Olesya, the statement was an attempt by the Prosecutor-General's office to excuse itself for its inactivity.[35] On 16 September 2010, Lytvyn asserted that the investigation into the murder of Gongadze confirmed his innocence in this crime.[43]

Pukach's trial, on allegations he strangled and beheaded Gongadze, began on 7 July 2011. It was closed to the public.[44][45] On 30 August 2011, Pukach claimed that Kuchma was the one who ordered the murder.[46] During the trial he also alleged that Lytvyn ordered the murder of Gongadze.[45]

In December 2011, the Pechersk District Court refused to accept witness testimony of Mykola Melnychenko as he has not been authorized to gather evidences for a committing crime, while conducting recordings in a cabinet of the President of Ukraine.[47]

On 29 January 2013, Pukach was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv.[45] Oleksiy Pukach also was stripped of his rank "General of Militsiya".[45] The court ruled Pukach had murdered the journalist on orders from Kravchenko, who was seeking a career promotion.[45]

On 9 July 2014, Myroslava Gongadze withdrew her appeal against the sentence of Pukach, as, according to her lawyer Valentyna Telychenko, "If the Court of Appeals will meet our appeal, it will be forced to simultaneously release Pukach from custody. We believe that Pukach is a killer and should serve his sentence".[48] Telychenko blamed former First Deputy Prosecutor-General Renat Kuzmin for "speculating with the Gongadze case" that according to her led to "exhausting Pukach's length of stay in detention during the preliminary investigation".[48]

Charges against Leonid Kuchma Edit

The Prosecutor-General's Office cancelled its resolution to deny opening of criminal cases against former President Leonid Kuchma and other politicians within the Gongadze case on 9 October 2010.[49]

On 24 March 2011 Ukrainian prosecutors charged Kuchma with involvement in the murder.[50] The decision prompted mixed reaction among the public. Former Prime Minister and the opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko argued that Kuchma's arrest was no more than a PR stunt designed to distract people from their economic woes and prop up President Viktor Yanukovych's sagging popularity.[50] Another theory was that Yanukovych was driven by the desire for revenge on Kuchma, who often humiliated Yanukovych and refused to use force to stop the Orange Revolution in 2004.[50] Political analysts suggested that Yanukovych's "display of justice" could also be aimed at winning credit from the West, which had criticised him for authoritarian measures.[50]

A Ukrainian district court ordered prosecutors to drop criminal charges against Kuchma on 14 December 2011 on grounds that evidence linking him to the murder of Gongadze was insufficient.[51] The court rejected Melnychenko's recordings as evidence.[47] Myroslava Gongadze appealed against this decision one week later.[52][53]

First Deputy Prosecutor-General Renat Kuzmin claimed 20 February 2013 that his office had collected enough evidence confirming Kuchma's responsibility for ordering Gongadze's assassination.[54] Kuchma's reply the next day was, "This is another banal example of a provocation, which I've heard more than enough in the past 12 years".[54]

2014 proposal to revisit Edit

On 9 July 2014, Prosecutor-General Vitaliy Yarema stated that his office would revisit investigations into high-profile cases "that were dropped unlawfully", including the cases dealing with the murder of Gongadze.[55]

Gongadze was buried in the Mykola Naberezhny Church in Kyiv on 22 March 2016.[56] Gongadze had remained unburied until then, as Olesya Gongadze, the journalist's mother, refused to have the body interred until Gongadze's head had been found.[39] In 2009, according to the Prosecutor-General's office, the remains of his skull had been found, but Olesya Gongadze refused to acknowledge that the found remains belonged to her son.[57] Olesya Gongadze died on 30 November 2013.[57]

Viktor Yushchenko posthumously awarded Gongadze the title Hero of Ukraine on 23 August 2005.[58] Gongadze's widow Myroslava Gongadze was given the 'Star of the Hero' decoration by President Petro Poroshenko on 21 March 2014.[57]

In June 2005, Kyiv's Industrialnaya Street was renamed Georgiy Gongadze Street.[59] Prospekt Radianska Ukrainii in Kyiv's Vynohradar neighborhood was renamed Prospekt Georgiy Gongadze in 2007.[60] A monument to Gongadze and all journalists killed for their professional activities was opened in Kyiv park at Chervonoarmiyska Street in August 2008,[61] though Gongadze's mother was against erecting a monument until the investigation is completed.[62] She repeated her wish "to remove the monument to Gongadze" after a meeting with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on 22 June 2010,[40] and also added her discontent with "political forces holding PR campaigns" regarding the Gongadze murder case.[40]

A literary token of respect for the work and courage of Gongadze is to be found in the novel for young adults, "Fair Game: The Steps of Odessa" (Spire Publishing, 2008, ISBN 1-897312-72-5) by James Watson. The book is dedicated to Giya Gongadze, and the theme of a persecuted journalist and the impact of his revelations about government corruption on his children has strong similarities to Gongadze's own fate.

In Kyiv and Lviv, ceremonies marking the disappearance of Gongadze were held on 16 September 2010 (ten years after his disappearance).[63]

As film director

1992 - The Pain of my Land (Ukrainian: Біль моєї землі)

1993 - Shadows of War (Ukrainian: Тіні війни) by the Center of Georgian Culture[64]

As established by the investigation and proved by the court. See Gongadze Case (2000-2008): A Legal Review by Dr iur Vyacheslav "Slavik" Bihun, LL.M. - ^ http://www.bihun.info/jushits/jurhit/article/242/

^ Key suspect in Gongadze murder arrested; Pukach allegedly strangled journalist, but who gave the order? (UPDATED), Kyiv Post, (22 July 2009)

^ Tymoshenko hopes those who ordered killing of Gongadze will be identified and punished, Interfax-Ukraine (29 July 2009)

^ From a warrior to a journalist (Від бійця до журналіста). Ukrainska Pravda. 16 September 2003

^

(in Russian) ^ Мать Гонгадзе отказывается хоронить выданное ей тело и "устраивать похороны чужих останков"[permanent dead link ] // Остров - Новости.

^ Eastern Europe, Russia and Central Asia 2004 (Europa Publications), Routledge, 12 December 2003, ISBN 1-85743-187-1 (page 504)

^ ECtHR jugdgment on application No. 34056/02

"Ukraine's 'censorship killing'". BBC News. 14 February 2001.

^

^

^ "'Killer admits' Gongadze murder". BBC News. 21 June 2004.

^ "'Gongadze killers' held by police". BBC. 1 March 2005.

^ "RFE/RL's E-Mail Digests".

^ UPDATE: PGO Finds Skull Fragments Allegedly Belonging To Gongadze Archived 1 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine, Ukrainian News Agency (29 July 2009)

^ Medvedko Refuses To Remove Holomsha From Investigation Into Gongadze's Murder Archived 5 February 2013 at archive.today, Ukrainian News Agency (30 July 2009)

^ Mother of murdered journalist Gongadze calls for politicians not to hold PR campaigns on 'Gongadze case', Kyiv Post (22 June 2010)

^ Court sentences Pukach to life for murdering Gongadze, disregards claims against Kuchma, Lytvyn, Kyiv Post (29 January 2013)
Ukraine police officer accuses ex-president after being jailed for life, Reuters (29 January 2013)
Gongadze killer pointed on Kuchma and Lytvyn. "LIGABusinessInform". 2013-1-29

(in Ukrainian) Gongadze's wife withdraws appeal against sentence Pukach, Ukrainska Pravda (9 July 2014)

^ "Ukraine's ex-president: Catching Kuchma". The Economist. Vol. 399, no. 8727. The Economist Newspaper Limited. 2-8 April 2011. p. 25.

Ukraine's Leonid Kuchma 'implicated' in Gongadze death, BBC News (20 February 2013)
Kuchma outraged by reports alleging his arrest, Kyiv Post (21 February 2013)

^ Body Of Ukrainian Reporter Gongadze Finally Buried, Radio Free Europe (22 March 2014)
Gongadze's body to be buried in Kyiv on March 22, Interfax-Ukraine (21 March 2014)

^ Poroshenko awards Hero of Ukraine medal to widow of slain journalist Gongadze, Interfax-Ukraine (21 March 2014)

(in Ukrainian) ^ Presidential decree awarding title Hero of Ukraine, Official Verkhovna Rada website

(in Ukrainian) ^ Over the past seven years, Malevich, Petliura and Kirpa streets have appeared in Kyiv, The Ukrainian Week (8 June 2013)

^ The film of Georgiy Gongadze again is becoming popular. "Vysokyi Val". 10 August 2008

"Ukraine: Radio station accuses authorities of bullying tactics", BBC Monitoring (from "Den", Kyiv), 27 October 1999

"Journalists seek freedom on the net", Kyiv Post, 4 May 2000

"Outspoken Ukraine journalist missing", BBC News, 19 September 2000

"Corpse of missing journalist found in Ukraine", Interfax, 16 November 2000

"Opposition leader blames Ukrainian president for "ordering" reporter's disappearance", Interfax, 28 November 2000

"Ukraine's 'censorship killing'", BBC News, 14 February 2001

"Judge denies journalist's murder solved", BBC News, 17 May 2001

"Ukraine official sentenced over journalist murder", BBC News, 7 May 2003

"'Killer admits' Gongadze murder", BBC News, 21 June 2004

"'Gongadze killers' held by police", BBC News, 1 March 2005

"Former intelligence chief alleged to have personally strangled Gongadze", IFEX, 19 April 2005

"Key Ukraine murder trial begins", BBC News, Monday, 9 January 2006

BBC News reports on the latest developments in the investigation of Gongadze's death

"Killing the Story", the BBC's extensive investigation of Gongadze's case

Collection of photocopied documents supposedly leaked from the criminal investigation of Gongadze's murder

Georgiy Gongadze murder: A horrific crime (September 2010 timeline of the crime by Kyiv Post)

Georgiy Gongadze case: Anatomy of a cover-up (September 2010 timeline of alleged cover-up of the crime by Kyiv Post)

Gondadze Case (2000-2008): A Legal Review - an Investigation by Dr iur Vyacheslav "Slavik" Bihun, LL.M. (September 2008 YurGazeta YurGazeta a review, a comprehensive chronology of events, interviews with judge I. Griroryeva, trial attorneys V. Chevguz, M. Laptiyev, V. Telychenko (lawyer for M. Gongadze), Myroslava Gongadze, etc.)

Key Witness in the Gongadze Case Dead (March 2005 Ukrainska Pravda article on the death of Kravchenko, analysing also his role in Gongadze case - includes fragments of the Melnychenko recordings)

How the Gongadze Case Has Been Investigated (June 2005 Ukrainska Pravda article on the history of the Gongadze case investigation)

Ukrains'ka Pravda's Web-page dedicated to Gongadze and his case

About Gongadze. 24 kanal.

Gongadze about Tymoshenko. Delo vkusa.

Dialogue of Gongadze with Medvedchuk.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Georgiy Ruslanovych Gongadze [a] (21 May 1969 - 17 September 2000)[1] was a Georgian- Ukrainian journalist and film director who was kidnapped and murdered in 2000 near Kyiv. He founded the internet newspaper Ukrainska Pravda along with Olena Prytula in 2000.

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מועדון פיס לנוער, כפר ורבורג, ישראל

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מועדון פיס לנוער, כפר ורבורג, ישראל

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מועדון פיס לנוער, כפר ורבורג, ישראל

# data[].attributes.body
Youth center

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広島県広島市中区大手町１丁目３−１０ 動員学徒慰霊塔

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Student Mobilization Memorial Tower.To make up for the labor shortage, the government enacted the Student Labor Service Act in August 1944. This act required students in middle school and higher grades to perform labor service in munitions factories and the like. Then, in November, many students were required to participate in tearing down homes and other buildings (building demolition). The purpose was to create fire-breaks to limit the expansion of fire in the event of air attacks. In Hiroshima City, of the roughly 8,400 students in the national upper level schools, about 6,300 died on the day of the bombing.
Most students working at various industries around the city were also killed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
42 Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students

Completed :

July 15, 1967

Established by :

Hiroshima Prefecture Mobilized Student Victims Association

To make up for the labor shortage, the government enacted the Student Labor Service Act in August 1944. This act required students in middle school and higher grades to perform labor service in munitions factories and the like. Then, in November, many students were required to participate in tearing down homes and other buildings (building demolition). The purpose was to create fire-breaks to limit the expansion of fire in the event of air attacks. In Hiroshima City, of the roughly 8,400 students in the national upper level schools, about 6,300 died on the day of the bombing.
Most students working at various industries around the city were also killed.
After the war, the government only permitted mobilized students killed in the atomic bombing or in air strikes whose names and date of death were known to be enshrined in Yasukuni Shrine. In response to this, bereaved families began a movement to create a list of the dead and donated funds to build this tower.

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Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students

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42 Memorial Tower to the Mobilized Students Completed : July 15, 1967 Established by : Hiroshima Prefecture Mobilized Student Victims Association To make up for the labor shortage, the government enacted the Student Labor Service Act in August 1944. This act required students in middle school and higher grades to perform labor service in munitions factories and the like.

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Erinnerungsstätte für die Freiheitsbewegungen in der deutschen Geschichte, Herrenstraße, Rastatt

# data[].attributes.headline
Erinnerungsstätte für die Freiheitsbewegungen in der deutschen Geschichte, Herrenstraße, Rastatt

# data[].attributes.subject
Erinnerungsstätte für die Freiheitsbewegungen in der deutschen Geschichte, Herrenstraße, Rastatt

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The city of Rastatt played an important role at the end of the German revolution in 1848.  In May 1849, the soldiers of the federal fortress who had lined up in the courtyard of the Residenzschloss rebelled. They are dissatisfied with their provisions, poor pay and treatment by their superiors. But they are not only concerned with material things: Under the motto "We are the people demanding our freedom!" they ally themselves with revolutionary citizens, depose their officers and declare their support for the liberal constitution adopted shortly before by the Frankfurt National Assembly for the whole of Germany.
From Rastatt, the uprising spreads to all of Baden. When Prussian troops marched in, the besieged city became the last bastion of revolution in Germany. After the surrender of the fortress on July 23, a court of indeterminacy convenes in Rastatt Castle and sentences 19 revolutionaries to death and many others to long prison sentences.

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Rastatter Residenzschloss Rastatt spielte eine zentrale Rolle in der Endphase der Revolution 1848/49. Heute erinnert eine Dauerausstellung an die Geschichte deutscher Freiheitsbewegungen im 19. Jahrhundert, komplettiert durch einen Teil über Opposition, Widerstand und Friedliche Revolution in der DDR.
Im Mai 1849 rebellieren die auf dem Hof des Residenzschlosses angetretenen Soldaten der Bundesfestung. Sie sind unzufrieden mit ihrer Versorgung, dem schlechten Lohn und der Behandlung durch ihre Vorgesetzten. Doch es geht ihnen nicht nur um materielle Dinge: Unter dem Motto „Wir sind das Volk, das seine Freiheit fordert!" verbünden sie sich mit revolutionären Bürgern, setzen ihre Offiziere ab und bekennen sich zu der kurz zuvor von der Frankfurter Nationalversammlung für ganz Deutschland verabschiedeten freiheitlichen Verfassung. Von Rastatt greift der Aufstand auf ganz Baden über. Als daraufhin preußische Truppen einmarschieren, wird die belagerte Stadt zur letzten Bastion der Revolution in Deutschland. Nach der Kapitulation der Festung am 23. Juli tagt im Rastatter Schloss ein Standgericht, das 19 Revolutionäre zum Tode und viele andere zu langen Freiheitsstrafen verurteilt.

Die Erinnerungsstätte für die Freiheitsbewegungen in der deutschen Geschichte wurde 1974 als erster nationaler Gedächtnisort für das demokratische Erbe Deutschlands eingerichtet und in die Obhut des Bundesarchivs gegeben. Seither zeigt das Bundesarchiv im Residenzschloss von Rastatt auf inzwischen über 1.200 Quadratmetern eine Dauerausstellung über „Freiheitsbewegungen in der deutschen Geschichte", in der sowohl die 1848er-Bewegung als auch (seit 2009) die Friedliche Revolution in der DDR thematisiert werden.

Die Sonderausstellung „Die Rastatter Prozesse - NS-Verbrechen vor Gericht" wird noch bis zum 15. März 2022 gezeigt. Die Besichtigung ist kostenfrei zu den regulären Öffnungszeiten der Erinnerungsstätte möglich.

zum Ort: Bundesarchiv

Relevante Köpfe

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Erinnerungsstätte für die Freiheitsbewegungen in der deutschen Geschichte

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Rastatter Residenzschloss Rastatt spielte eine zentrale Rolle in der Endphase der Revolution 1848/49. Heute erinnert eine Dauerausstellung an die Geschichte deutscher Freiheitsbewegungen im 19. Jahrhundert, komplettiert durch einen Teil über Opposition, Widerstand und Friedliche Revolution in der DDR. Im Mai 1849 rebellieren die auf dem Hof des Residenzschlosses angetretenen Soldaten der Bundesfestung.

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The Gaza Strip (;[3] Arabic: قِطَاعُ غَزَّةَ Qiṭāʿu Ġazzah [qi.tˤaːʕ ɣaz.zah], Hebrew: רצועת עזה, [r’tsu’at ’áza]), or simply Gaza, is a Palestinian enclave on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.[4][5] It borders Egypt on the southwest for 11 kilometers (6.8 mi) and Israel on the east and no…

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International Court Of Justice, Carnegieplein, The Hague, Netherlands

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International Court Of Justice, Carnegieplein, The Hague, Netherlands

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International Court Of Justice, Carnegieplein, The Hague, Netherlands

# data[].attributes.location_name
Mendiola Peace Arch, Mendiola Street, San Miguel, Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines

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Mendiola Peace Arch, Mendiola Street, San Miguel, Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines

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Mendiola Peace Arch, Mendiola Street, San Miguel, Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines

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Mendiola Street (simply known as "Mendiola") is a short thoroughfare in Manila, Philippines. The street is named after Enrique Mendiola, an educator, textbook author, and member of the first Board of Regents of the University of the Philippines. As a street close to Malacañang Palace, the President of the Philippines' official residence, it has been the site of numerous and sometimes bloody demonstrations.

Mendiola Street has frequently been the site of often violent confrontations between protesters and government troops protecting Malacañang Palace.

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סדאקה - רעות למען דו-קיום בישראל, טוביה הרופא, תל אביב, ישראל

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סדאקה - רעות למען דו-קיום בישראל, טוביה הרופא, תל אביב, ישראל

# data[].attributes.subject
סדאקה - רעות למען דו-קיום בישראל, טוביה הרופא, תל אביב, ישראל

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Coexistence center

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סדאקה רעות שותפות נוער ערבי יהודי - Sadaka-Reut

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הפקה של יוזמות חברתיות-פוליטיות מהווה נדבך מרכזי בכל הפרויקטים החינוכיים בסדאקה-רעות, משום שהן מקנות למשתתפים בטחון ואמונה ביכולתם להיות סוכני שינוי. המנחים מעודדים את המשתתפים לפעול ברמה המקומית-קהילתית, ובו בזמן להבין ולקשור סוגיות אלה להקשר הפולטי הרחב יותר, ועל ידי כך לשלב בין החברתי והפולטי באופנים משמעותיים.

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In 1993 the "road of the human rights" in was handed over to the public in Nuremberg.
Each of the pillars bears the abstract of one of the 30 articles of the "universal declaration of human rights" of 1948.
the installation created by the Israelian artist Dani Karavan commemorates the darkest chapter of German and Nuremberg history but also symbolizes the victory of humanity over barbarism and gives hope for a world in which all people can live in dignity, peace and freedom.

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Savaş, Dört Ayaklı Minare Esta Gümüş, Yenikapı Sokak, Sur/Diyarbakır, Turkey

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Dört Ayaklı Minare, Yenikapı Sokak, Sur/Diyarbakır, Turkey

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Dört Ayaklı Minare, Yenikapı Sokak, Sur/Diyarbakır, Turkey

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The Murder of Tahir Elçi

On 28 November 2015, Tahir Elçi, a prominent Kurdish human rights lawyer, was shot and killed during a press conference in the city of Diyarbakır, Turkey.

Elçi’s death came during a time of rising tensions in the country, against the backdrop of the decades-long conflict between Turkish security forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a militant political movement dedicated to achieving Kurdish autonomy in Turkey’s southeast.

By late 2015, a major peace process had recently collapsed into violence. Elçi had been a prominent voice for calm and de-escalation, but after his death, the situation in Diyarbakır deteriorated into humanitarian catastrophe, leaving hundreds of civilians dead and thousands displaced.

It was not only the manner of his death that fuelled rumours and conspiracy theories. The early days of the investigation into his death were chaotic, and in three years since the killing, no one has been charged.

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Place of assassination of Israeli prime minister Itzhak Rabin, who engaged in a peace process between Israelis and Palestinians.

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Rabin Square ( Hebrew: כיכר רבין, Kikar Rabin), formerly Kings of Israel Square ( Hebrew: כיכר מלכי ישראל, Kikar Malkhey Yisrael), is a main large public city square in the center of Tel Aviv, Israel. Over the years it has been the site of numerous political rallies, parades, and other public events. In 1995 the square was renamed 'Rabin Square' following the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin which occurred there on November 4th 1995.

The square is surrounded by the Tel Aviv City Hall to the north (designed by the architect Menachem Cohen), Ibn Gabirol Street to the east, Malkhey Yisrael (Kings of Israel) Street to the south and Hen Boulevard to the west. It was designed alongside the city hall in 1964 by architects Yaski and Alexandroni.

Until the early 1990s, the square was used on Israel's Independence Day, as a public exhibition ground for IDF field units (mostly armor and heavy artillery). The square has also been the site of many political rallies and demonstrations.

Prime Minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated at the conclusion of a peace rally at the site on November 4, 1995. In the days following the event, thousands of Israelis gathered at the square to commemorate Rabin. The young people who came to mourn Rabin were dubbed the "Candles Youth" ( Hebrew: נוער הנרות, Noar HaNerot) after the many yahrzeit candles they lit. A segment of the graffiti they drew upon the nearby walls has been preserved.

A memorial stands on the spot where Rabin was assassinated (at the northeast corner of the square, below City Hall). Part of the memorial is a small, open legacy wall for Rabin. Near the south end of the square is a memorial sculpture designed by Israeli artist Igael Tumarkin commemorating the Holocaust.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s a great deal of criticism had been voiced about the Square's appearance, most directed at the City Hall building. What in the 1960s was one of the city's biggest and most impressive architectural designs came to be considered by critics as one of the city's worst eyesores. Plans have been made (most of which have even been approved) to renovate the whole square and City Hall. These include giving City Hall a more modern look to fit in with the many new skyscrapers in Tel Aviv, and the construction of a large underground parking complex underneath the square to alleviate the lack of parking in the area. Opposition to the renovation plans mostly centers around arguments that the design of the square and City Hall are part of Tel Aviv's history and should be preserved. As a result of this opposition, major reconstruction has been delayed. However, in 2010 a minor renovation project was carried out, in which an ecological water pool was constructed near the Holocaust commemorative monument, and around it a deck with a recreational area.

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Rabin Square ( Hebrew: כיכר רבין, Kikar Rabin), formerly Kings of Israel Square ( Hebrew: כיכר מלכי ישראל, Kikar Malkhey Yisrael), is a main large public city square in the center of Tel Aviv, Israel. Over the years it has been the site of numerous political rallies, parades, and other public events.

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5 Taras Shevchenko Street, Tbilisi, Georgia

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5 Taras Shevchenko Street, Tbilisi, Georgia

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5 Taras Shevchenko Street, Tbilisi, Georgia

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Civic Education Teacher’s Forum

The organization aims to strengthen HRE in the country

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Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines

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Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines

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Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, Mandaluyong, Metro Manila, Philippines

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Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, abbreviated as EDSA, is the site of the Philippine People Power Revolution, a non-violent civil protest movement in the Philippines that led to the overthrow of dictator Ferdinand Marcos on February 22–25, 1986. It is also called the People Power Revolution in the country where millions of Filipinos (at least 3M) flocked to EDSA Avenue to protest the recent February elections and stop the Philippine military from crushing the "instigators" of the movement nearby.

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British Normandy Memorial, Avenue Paul Poret, Ver-sur-Mer, France

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British Normandy Memorial, Avenue Paul Poret, Ver-sur-Mer, France

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British Normandy Memorial, Avenue Paul Poret, Ver-sur-Mer, France

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Kampala is known to be the capital city of Uganda and i  hosts 5m people on a daily basis. It's where most of the events to independence took place in 1962.
It was named after impala an animal that used to live there. It's where the independence monument is and also it was named the capital on 9th October 1962 on independence from the British government, today it habours most of the administrative offices of government like the Parliament and all Ministerial Headquarters, Judiciary, Police Headquarters  and more and other impacting institutions like hospitals.

Iconically, it is sitting on 7hills and can easily be indentified by the famou  Gaddafi Mosque at the hill of Old Kampala situated in the heart of the city. It's also known for it's Boda-Bodas as one of the easiest mean of transport and also known for its famous junk food knonwn as Rolex.

It has one of he busiest night economy of partying 🤣 by Kampala people who spend most of their nights in bars and happening places almost everyday and it's ranked highly as one of the centers of hospitality as it has a millions of refugees from across the world. And lastly Kampala is found in yhe famous Buganda Kingdom that can best be understood by visiting the kingdom's palace and also Kasubi tombs where most of the literature of the Kingdom is kept.
#VisitUganda #VisitKampala.

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אנדרטה לנופלים, כפר ורבורג, ישראל

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אנדרטה לנופלים, כפר ורבורג, ישראל

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אנדרטה לנופלים, כפר ורבורג, ישראל

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Memorial monument for soldiers who lost their lives in the fight for a homeland

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אתר ההנצחה לחללי מערכות ישראל

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אתר ההנצחה לחללי מערכות ישראל

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אתר ההנצחה לחללי מערכות ישראל

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Commission on Human Rights, Magsaysay Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines

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Commission on Human Rights, Magsaysay Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines

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Commission on Human Rights, Magsaysay Avenue, Diliman, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines

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The Commission on Human Rights (Filipino: Komisyon ng Karapatang Pantao) (CHR) is an independent constitutional office created under the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines, with the primary function of investigating all forms of human rights violations involving civil and political rights in the Philippines.

The commission was first founded and led by Chairman Jose W. Diokno, a prominent lawyer and the father of human rights in the country, whom the surrounding park of the headquarters now known as the Liwasang Diokno (Diokno Freedom Park) was named after. Diokno also founded the premier human rights network called the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG). Furthermore, the hall inside the compound is called Bulwagang Ka Pepe or the Ka Pepe Hall, which features a sculpted bust and large mural of the late senator.

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Bassiani, Akaki Tsereteli Avenue, Tbilisi, Georgia

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Bassiani, Akaki Tsereteli Avenue, Tbilisi, Georgia

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Bassiani, Akaki Tsereteli Avenue, Tbilisi, Georgia

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The story of Tbilisi's Bassiani nightclub reveals the complex relationship between the country's police, drug laws, music scene, and LGTBQ+ youth

From his vantage point in the DJ booth, HVL could tell that something was amiss.

In most clubs, dancers are picked out from beneath, eerily up-lit as they check texts or scroll through Instagram feeds, while the room pulses as phone flashes capture blurred photos. But in Bassiani, the labyrinthine club of poured concrete that squats beneath Dinamo Stadium in Tblisi, the Georgian capital, taking photos is forbidden. Burly security guards, dressed head-to-toe in black, emerge from the shadows and politely (read: firmly) intercept those who forget this policy. The only lights that pick out the dancers tend to come from above, from light cannons and laser beams. Hanging low on cables that snake up into the rafters high above the dancefloor are parallel rows of yellow spot-lights. At times, the dancefloor is completely dark, the only light the soft glow of the DJ booth and a single spotlight picking out a single dancer, one body in motion amongst hundreds.

"At first, I thought that someone was taking a video, but it lasted too long," recalls HVL. Real name Gigi Jikia, HVL is an electronic producer and one of Bassiani's resident DJs. We're meeting over coffee in a trendy restaurant a stone's throw away from Rustaveli Avenue, Tbilisi's main drag. "Then I saw more lights, criss-crossing the dancefloor. That's when I knew it was different."

A few moments later, he spotted the first policeman. The lights were coming from their rifles, and the club was suddenly swarming with officers in riot gear. HVL stepped down from the booth, leaving the music running. The police forced him, along with all the other ravers, to line up against a wall. The lights came on at some point, and for a few minutes the police circulated around the now-empty dancefloor, their movements staccato with the big-room techno still playing all around them. They pointed their guns at the corners and up at the ceiling, impotently - they couldn't make the music stop.

Bassiani's main room is an empty 50m Olympic sized swimming pool, a Soviet relic that had previously lain abandoned for the best part of a decade. The club's three co-founders, Tato Getia, Zviad Gelbakhiani, and Naja Orashvili, opened the venue in 2012 after their previous warehouse space became too expensive to keep running parties. Key people from Dinamo had been at their clubnights before, and suggested that the Bassiani crew should take a look at the cavernous space underneath the stadium. With the lights on, you can see the tiles of the swimming pool and the gentle gradient of the sloping floor. The DJ plays from the deep end.

It was here that HVL stood, opposite the police, and snapped a photo. The police shut down Bassiani and kicked the partygoers out, but they couldn't make them disperse. The ravers stood at the entrance and protested as the police rounded up suspects and arrested the club owners, as well as members of the White Noise, a local NGO dedicated to liberalising the country's draconian drug laws. The police also raided Café Gallery, a club that had been the first to openly welcome the city's LGBTQ+ community through its doors.

The police said these were drug raids. In the previous month, five people had died in Tbilisi from drug overdoses; they had returned home from nights out, fallen asleep, and never woken up. The raid, however, seemed to be about far more than tackling drugs in the city. In total, they arrested only eight dealers, seizing drugs with a street value totalling just 2,000 Georgian Lari, the equivalent of €800. In the days that followed the raid, the government was humiliated when it transpired that none of those arrests had even been made in the clubs - the dealers, almost all in their early 20s, had been picked up earlier in the day.

As news spread of the raids, people from across the city congregated outside of Bassiani to show support. Other clubs stopped their parties in mid-swing and marshalled their audiences to go and support the growing crowd at the venue, a sign of the collegiality of the club scene in the city.

"At first, I thought that someone was taking a video... Then I saw more lights, criss-crossing the dancefloor. That's when I knew it was different" - HVL, Bassiani resident DJ

What followed next is well known. The crowd outside Bassiani marched to Rustaveli Avenue and set up shop outside the parliament building. Named after Shota Rustaveli, Georgia's most famous poet, the street is the main artery of the city - it was here that Georgians shelled fellow Georgians in the Hundred Metres War, when, just after gaining independence from the USSR, opposing forces fought each other from opposite sides of the street in the early 90s; it also saw the jubilant, and mercifully peaceful, triumph of Saakashvili's Rose Revolution. Carotid, young people coursed along this street from their homes until there were tens of thousands of people in the heart of Tbilisi.

Police posted up, creating a ring around the youth of the city, while outside the cordon, neo-Nazi groups and reactionary agitators circulated - some, it was rumoured, brandishing knives and other weapons. Someone set up a DJ rig among the protestors, and the Giegling crew, who'd been scheduled to perform at Bassiani the night of the raids, started playing to the crowd. "We dance together, we fight together," became the slogan of the day. It was a message that resonated throughout the international dance community as clubs and DJs around the world voiced their support. The party on Rustaveli went on for two days before it finally petered out.

While any discussion of Tbilisi nightlife is now inextricable from the May raids and the rave on Rustaveli, that isn't why I visited the city. I wanted to understand the backstory. How was it that Tbilisi - a city of less than one million people in a country buffeted by war, where the average monthly salary only just peaks above $400, where vegan restaurants get targeted by sausage-throwing ultra-conservative hooligans, where LGBTQ+ lives are severely marginalised - was a place where electronic music had become so integral to the lives of some young people that they were willing to risk neo-Nazis and baton-wielding police to demand their right to it?

My friend Gia put it in perspective over dinner one night: "20 years ago we barely had electricity. Now, we have the most interesting electronic music scene in the world."

Bassiani is more than just a club. It's a vortex, whose inextricable gravity has drawn in the progressive social movements of the city, connecting and binding them together. The women's rights movement, the LGBTQ+ movement, and the drug reform movement are all, in their own way, heavily indebted to and consecrated by Bassiani. The club (whose name, relevantly, comes from an existential battle fought between Georgia and the Sultanate of Rum in the 13th century; it literally translates as 'one with the bass') runs monthly 'Horoom' nights, legendary LGBTQ+ parties that you can only get a single ticket for after undergoing a social media vetting process by the local NGO Equality Movement. White Noise has also centred itself around Bassiani and found vocal support from the club's founders, who regularly speak at their events and in the media in favour of drug reform.

"It's not about the right to use drugs," says Tato Getia, co-founder of Bassiani, in the sparse office he keeps in a storefront at Dinamo Stadium. "It's about basic human rights. It's about not having to spend your life in prison for a tiny amount of drugs when the penalty for rape is lower than that for possession of narcotics. Our drug policies are from the stone age."

In Georgia, the penalty for being caught with a high dose of drugs can be years in prison. Anything over 1g is considered a very high dose, and can result in eight to 20 years. There is nothing below a 'high dose' of drugs, which is why one person is currently serving prison time for having 0.009 milligrams of heroin in a syringe. Kote Japaridze, a resident DJ at Bassiani's Horoom nights, was caught in 2016 buying 2g of MDMA; it was only after White Noise publicised his case that he managed to negotiate his eight-year sentence down to one, which he served. He still paid a fine of 45,000 lari (£15,000); over triple the average annual salary for Georgia. When I met him for a coffee, he told me he still has three years left on his parole.

"It's not about the right to use drugs. It's about basic human rights" - Tato Getia, co-founder of Bassiani

Getia's younger brother was also hassled by the police. He had a "single puff" of hashish on him, according to Getia, when he was randomly stopped-and-searched in the city centre. "They held him in the street for 10 hours," he says. "There were five cars with two policemen in them. What a waste of time." As Getia (and White Noise more generally) see it, law enforcement is the largest branch of government in Georgia, and for them, going after minor drug offenses allows them to justify their bloated budgets and the sheer number of people they employ. That Bassiani was at the centre of a reform movement seeking to undermine the police's institutional power made the club an obvious target.

Getia's office features little in the way of ornaments, and he sits with his back to a white wall. We meet in the late afternoon, with the soft orange glow of the setting sun seeping through the closed shutters, casting horizontal shadows across his face like prison bars. He physically underlines the points he is making by drawing dots and lines on the page. By the end of our conversation, the page is full of circles, arrows, and intersecting lines. It looks like the drawings of a tactician, as if he's mapping out plans for a battle to come.

Some of the things Getia underlines as he speaks: that more than one out of every third person in prison in Georgia is held for drugs charges, that nearly two hundred police were deployed for the May club raids, armed with machine guns, that Bassiani had over 45,000 lari (roughly £15,000) confiscated from their safe and bars, and that the investigation has now stalled, which means he will never see the money returned. He is, rightly, furious. As we speak, he stabs at the page more violently and becomes more and more agitated. "These clubs should be a source of pride!" he almost shouts. "Before... no one knew Tbilisi, no one had any idea what was happening in Georgia. Now, the world is aware of us and people come from all over to these clubs. And they still hit us here! Why?"

Clubs, and clubbing, are a recent development in Georgia. While a fledgling electronic music scene has existed in the city since the late 90s, and an early generation of venues, such as the long-shuttered Berlin and Adjara Music Hall, brought club culture to Tbilisi, it was only in the late 2000s that the scene matured and developed, and the roots of what exists now began to take hold. Today, Georgian DJs are being booked internationally. Bassiani is doing showcases worldwide, with planned takeovers of Berghain and parties in places as far afield as Mexico. It just pulled off a massive showcase in nearby Armenia which shows the power that clubbing is having in drawing progressive kids to dancefloors throughout the Caucasus. Bassiani also has a label, and its releases regularly sell out with represses in high demand. In fact, it's this idea - that one day the music itself will be able to stand on its own, separate from the politics that undergird it - that most of the people I interviewed pinned their hopes.

Why electronic music, and particularly techno, took off in the city is something of a mystery. Japaridze, the DJ on parole, puts it one way. "It speaks to you," he says. I asked the question to everyone I interviewed, and most of them posited that it was a combination of the music not being rooted in a particular language, like rock, or a place, like hip hop's connection to the USA; that it could be produced cheaply in bedroom studios; and that this particular scene was the most organised and quickest to develop.

"We really have to look to the clubs here as an example of what is possible in the city," says Sergi Gvarjaladze, head of the Night Tbilisi Development Concept, which seeks to boost Tbilisi's night economy and turn the city into a modern 24/7 metropolis. "They started from scratch and organised themselves and built this incredible momentum."

Before taking on his current role, Gvarjaladze was a radio host, a TV producer, and a musician (his song " Artificial Love " was a hit in 90s Georgia). His current job had been made somewhat more difficult in the wake of the club raids. "It's difficult for me," he admits with a beleaguered look as we sit on a bench in Vake park. He takes a drag from his cigarette and motions over at the modern, glass-fronted building which he now calls his office, the Mediatek Tbilisi Media Centre. "I'm part of the government now - well, at the very least, the city government - but I immediately called out the raids and said I thought they were a mistake. Raids happen all over the world, but the momentum wasn't right..." He shrugs. "For Georgian police, and for wider society, these clubs are a new thing. A lot of people think it's a bad thing."

"We really have to look to the clubs here as an example of what is possible in the city" - Sergi Gvarjaladze, head of Night Tbilisi Development Concept

Raids do happen everywhere. In China - where I've lived, on and off, for the last five years - police have started parking buses across the entrance of clubs, marching the clubbers out and whisking them to the nearest police station, and then making them do urine tests. Foreigners caught positive are deported, while Chinese citizens face huge fines or jail time. In London, the 90s raves that gave birth to some of the most popular genres of dance music today were regularly shut down by police under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994, which also created the first ever legal definition for a genre of music, stipulating that police have the right to break up groups of people listening to amplified sounds "wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats". But even in China, the police don't arrive in riot gear pointing machine guns at ravers.

For an older generation of Georgians, who have no experience of ever going clubbing, these spaces can be easily stigmatised. While British and American politicians have to bury stories of their sordid pasts, there are few Georgian politicians who even had the opportunity to visit a club. When they were in their teens, their country was either still part of the Soviet Union, or it was a crumbling post-Soviet republic struggling with a single hour of electricity a day. As such, the dark spaces that have started rumbling under their cities are, in their imagination, the dark and seedy underbelly of a society that is moving too fast for them to keep up.

The other problem for this generation is that the clubs have, historically, been a major motivating force for social change in the city. "No one has ever managed to get thousands of people out on the streets to advocate for policies in the way our generation have managed to numerous times," notes Bassiani's Tato Getia. White Noise, in particular, have made huge strides in pushing for drug reform: they've succeeded in negotiating down the sentences of a number of people arrested, and they were also instrumental in pushing for the decriminalisation of marijuana, which most prominent politicians have stated support for over the past few years, albeit without taking any substantiative measures towards enacting it. The bill finally passed on July 30, no doubt in large part as a result of the continued pressure from groups like White Noise and international outcry in the wake of the raids on the clubs.

The city's clubs have also been the beating heart of the LGBTQ+ community. "For many in the scene, they literally have nowhere to go," notes Ana Subeliani, an activist in Tblisi. "A lot of people get ostracised and cut off from their families when they come out. They find new families in the clubs." We're meeting in Café Gallery, a club with strong connections to the city's LGBTQ+ community that was also hit during the raids. Bassiani's Horoom nights built on the momentum that Café Gallery helped establish, and both have been instrumental in expanding tolerance and normalising the LGBTQ+ community in the city.

The change in the city's relationship to the LGBTQ+ community has been clear over the last five years. On May 17, 2013 - the International Day Against Homophobia - a gathering of 50 LGBTQ+ activists was mobbed by a group of over 10,000 right wing thugs, led by priests in full vestments who paraded under banners declaring 'No to Mental Genocide' and 'No to Gays'. The ensuing violence was such that the police had to snatch up members of the LGBTQ+ community, throw them on a bus, and drive them out of the city to an undisclosed location before gradually bringing them back, one by one. "I saw 10,000 people who wanted to kill me," Magda Kalandadze, a 30-year-old activist told a reporter from Harper's at the time.

The 'pogrom', as it came to be known, cast a long shadow over Tbilisi. While things have improved somewhat in the subsequent years, it's been clear that the rainbow road is not without its potholes; in 2016 there were 30 violent attacks against members of the LGBTQ+ community, including the deadly stabbing of a trans woman. That same year, Tbilisi hosted the World Council of Families, a congress of right-wing, anti-gay activists who meet to lament the rise of 'queer totalitarianism' and the apparent excesses of liberalism globally. The Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, the de facto leader of the three million Orthodox believers of Georgia, spoke at the gathering, and on May 17, three years to the day of the pogrom, led a march through the city and declared it "Family Strength and Honour of Parents Day". This year, according to Subeliani, five trans women have been murdered.

Still, things have changed a lot. "In 2013, thousands of people came out to beat those people up," Getia tells me, "but now in our club, we have a thousand people or more every month coming to our LGBT party. And you know what, they can't do anything about it. At the start, we had guys come and try to cause trouble, but then our security came out, and they saw that we were thousands and they were just a handful of people... they've never returned. The tide has turned already. We outnumber them."

"A lot of people get ostracised and cut off from their families when they come out. They find new families in the clubs" - Ana Subeliani, activist

In 2011, a survey found that almost nine in 10 Georgians believed that homosexuality could never be justified. By 2017, the first openly gay candidate was able to stand for a council seat in Tbilisi, although she didn't win. The clubs still very much represent a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community, and importantly they help normalise the community by exposing them in a permissive environment to mainstream heterosexual club goers. This interaction has helped change people's minds and perceptions in the city. While there is a long way to go, it's clear that the road thus travelled has been trodden to a techno soundtrack.

The success that the clubs have had with drug reform and with expanding tolerance for the LGBTQ+ community mark them out and are part of the reason why they are so special for people in the city. For Anna Zedginidze, who runs a nightlife start-up called MoonLife in the city, "it's like going back home". Even if you aren't into the music, the clubs are a space exclusively carved out for the youth of the city, where people from different backgrounds that trace an entire spectrum of identities can connect. For Georgia, a country that is 84% practicing Orthodox Christian and pulled between the competing spheres of influence of the west and from Russia (which presently occupies 20% of Georgia via the breakaway region of South Ossetia), they represent the ultimate hope for a whole generation of progressive kids who want to live without restrictions.

That's why clubbing in Tblisi is inherently political. Even where clubs don't state an explicit politics, though some do, their very existence, given the wider political environment, makes them political.

"We don't compromise," Tato Getia tells me as he gets up from his desk and leads me towards the door. The sun has dropped low by now and the shadows on the wall behind him have coalesced. We walk out into the amber evening and he motions towards the entrance to the club where I'll see him later. He is, all things considered, hopeful. As he notes, the people who came out on the streets to defend Bassiani are also the people who in a decade will be in positions of power in the country. Their movement, we agreed, was less a protest against the government and more a protest for a way of life. This means that for him, the future is written. "It's clear where we are headed," he tells me, "there is no way that tomorrow we will wake up and the mindset will be completely different."

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How techno became the sound of protest in Georgia

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From his vantage point in the DJ booth, HVL could tell that something was amiss. In most clubs, dancers are picked out from beneath, eerily up-lit as they check texts or scroll through Instagram feeds, while the room pulses as phone flashes capture blurred photos.

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Made of several thousand medals in Prishtina 2017, the memorial Heroins (Heroinat) by Ilir Blakçori honours the sacrifice of thousands of women raped during the Kosovo war of 1998-99!

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138 votes, 12 comments. 59.7k members in the albania community. Ask, find, and simply explore things about Albania and Albanians in this subreddit!

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Made of several thousand medals in Prishtina 2017, the memorial Heroins (Heroinat) by Ilir Blakçori honours the sacrifice of thousands of women raped during the Kosovo war of 1998-99! from albania

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Enugu massacre

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The fall of Enugu was a military conflict between Nigerian and Biafran forces in September and October 1967 during the Nigerian Civil War which centered around Enugu, the capital of the secessionist Republic of Biafra. Nigerian federal forces had made Enugu’s capture a priority shortly after war bro…

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It’s the central place of Ukrainian Revolution of Independence in 2014, which resulted in change of government and a more pro-democratic development of the country

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The Revolution of Dignity ( Ukrainian: Революція гідності, romanized: Revoliutsiia hidnosti), also known as the Maidan Revolution and the Ukrainian Revolution,[2] took place in Ukraine in February 2014[2][1] at the end of the Euromaidan protests,[1] when deadly clashes between protesters and the security forces in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv culminated in the ousting of elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War, and the overthrow of the Ukrainian government.[1][2]

Revolution of Dignity

Part of Euromaidan and the early phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War

Date

18-23 February 2014[1][2]
(5 days)

Location

50°27′0″N 30°31′27″E ﻿ / ﻿ 50.45000°N 30.52417°E

Goals

Methods

Resulted in

Euromaidan / Opposition victory

In November 2013, a wave of large-scale protests (known as Euromaidan) erupted in response to President Yanukovych's sudden decision not to sign a political association and free trade agreement with the European Union (EU), instead choosing closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. In February of that year, the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) had overwhelmingly approved finalizing the agreement with the EU.[26] Russia had put pressure on Ukraine to reject it.[27] These protests continued for months; their scope widened, with calls for the resignation of Yanukovych and the Azarov Government.[28] Protesters opposed what they saw as widespread government corruption and abuse of power, the influence of oligarchs, police brutality, and violation of human rights in Ukraine.[29][30] Repressive anti-protest laws fuelled further anger.[29] A large, barricaded protest camp occupied Independence Square in central Kyiv throughout the 'Maidan Uprising'.

In January and February 2014, clashes in Kyiv between protesters and Berkut special riot police resulted in the deaths of 108 protesters and 13 police officers,[20] and the wounding of many others. The first protesters were killed in fierce clashes with police on Hrushevskoho Street on 19-22 January. Following this, protesters occupied government buildings throughout the country. The deadliest clashes were on 18-20 February, which saw the most severe violence in Ukraine since it regained independence.[31] Thousands of protesters advanced towards parliament, led by activists with shields and helmets, and were fired on by police snipers.[20] On 21 February, an agreement between President Yanukovych and the leaders of the parliamentary opposition was signed that called for the formation of an interim unity government, constitutional reforms and early elections.[32] The following day, police withdrew from central Kyiv, which came under effective control of the protesters. Yanukovych fled the city.[33] That day, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from office by 328 to 0 (72.8% of the parliament's 450 members).[34][35][36][32]

Yanukovych said that this vote was illegal and possibly coerced, and asked Russia for help.[37] Russia considered the overthrow of Yanukovych to be an illegal coup, and did not recognize the interim government. Widespread protests, both for and against the revolution, occurred in eastern and southern Ukraine, where Yanukovych previously received strong support in the 2010 presidential election. These protests escalated into violence, resulting in pro-Russian unrest throughout Ukraine, especially in the southern and east regions in the country. As such, the early phase of the Russo-Ukrainian War soon quickly escalated into a Russian military intervention,[38][39] the annexation of Crimea by Russia, and the creation of self-proclaimed breakaway states in Donetsk and Luhansk. This sparked the Donbas War, and culminated with Russia initiating a full-scale invasion of the country in 2022.

The interim government, led by Arseniy Yatsenyuk, signed the EU association agreement and disbanded the Berkut. Petro Poroshenko became president after a victory in the 2014 presidential elections (54.7% of the votes cast in the first round). The new government restored the 2004 amendments to the Ukrainian constitution that had been controversially repealed as unconstitutional in 2010,[40] and initiated a removal of civil servants associated with the overthrown regime.[41][42][43] There was also a widespread decommunization of the country.

Successive Ukrainian governments in the 2000s sought a closer relationship with the European Union (EU).[44][45] The government of president Viktor Yanukovych had been negotiating an association agreement with the European Union since 2012.[46] Such comprehensive trade agreement with the EU would have impacted Ukraine's trade agreements with Russia, the latter being Ukraine's biggest trade partner at the time.[47] Yanukovych believed that the complications could be addressed, and he said that he intended to enter the agreement,[48] but continued to postpone.[49] This was interpreted as an attempt to back out of signing this agreement, and led to a wave of protests which came to be known as the " Euromaidan" movement.[50]

Protests originally erupted in November 2013 after Yanukovych refused to sign the association agreement with the EU at a meeting of the Eastern Partnership in Vilnius, Lithuania, choosing closer ties with Russia instead. Prime Minister Mykola Azarov had asked for €20 billion (US$27 billion) in loans and aid.[51] The EU was willing to offer €610 million ($838 million) in loans,[52] but Russia was willing to offer $15 billion,[52] as well as cheaper gas prices.[52] In addition, the EU demanded major changes to Ukraine's regulations and laws, but Russia did not stipulate regulatory or legal adjustment of such nature or scale.[51] Russia also applied economic pressure on Ukraine and launched a propaganda campaign against the EU deal.[53]

Yanukovych was widely disliked in Ukraine's west but had some support in the east, where his native Russian is much more spoken, and in the south. The rallies were initially peaceful but became violent in January 2014 after parliament, dominated by Yanukovych's supporters, passed laws intended to repress the protests. The European Union and the United States urged Yanukovych to negotiate a peaceful end to the conflict and said they would impose sanctions on government officials if they were found responsible for violence.[54]

In the lead-up to the February revolution an amnesty agreement was made with protesters wherein they would be spared criminal charges in exchange for leaving occupied buildings.[55] The demonstrators vacated all occupied Regional State Administration buildings, and activists in Kyiv left the Hrushevskoho Street standoff; Kyiv's City Hall was also released back to government control on 16 February.[55] All those previously jailed for taking part in protests were scheduled to be released after 17 February.[55]

On 14 February, Yanukovych had said: "I want to say that I was incited, and I'm incited to use various methods and ways how to settle the situation, but I want to say I don't want to be at war. I don't want any decisions made using such a radical way."[56] He called on all politicians to refrain from radicalism and to understand that "there is a line that shouldn't be crossed, and this line is law".[56]

The protests that began on the night of 21 November 2013 with public protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv were still ongoing by mid-February 2014.[2][1] The protests were sparked by the Ukrainian government's decision to suspend the signing of an association agreement with the European Union (EU).[2][1]

A period of relative calm in the anti-government demonstrations in Kyiv ended abruptly on 18 February 2014, when protesters and police clashed. At least 82 people were killed over the next few days, including 13 policemen; more than 1,100 people were injured.[57][58]

On 18 February, some 20,000 Euromaidan protesters advanced on the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) in support of restoring the Constitution of Ukraine to its 2004 form, which had been repealed by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine shortly after Yanukovych was elected president in 2010. The police blocked their path. The confrontation turned violent; the BBC, citing correspondents, reported that each side blamed the other.[59] The police fired guns with both rubber bullets and, later, live ammunition (including automatic weapons and sniper rifles), while also using tear gas and flash grenades in an attempt to repel thousands of demonstrators. The protesters fought with crude weapons (such as large rocks and bats), firearms, and improvised explosives ( Molotov cocktails),[60] and broke into the headquarters of the Party of Regions. Police officers stormed the main protest camp on Maidan Nezalezhnosti and overran parts of the square.[59] The Trade Unions Building, which served as the Euromaidan headquarters, was burned down. Political commentators suggested that Ukraine was on the brink of a civil war.[61] Some areas, including Lviv Oblast, declared themselves politically independent of the central government.[62]

On 19 February, the authorities instituted police checkpoints, restrictions on public transportation, and school closures in Kyiv, which the media referred to as a de facto state of emergency.[64]

On 20 February, Internal Affairs Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko announced that he had signed a decree authorising the use of live ammunition against protesters.[65] Central Kyiv saw the worst violence yet, and the death toll in 48 hours of clashes rose to at least 77.[66] In response, the chairman of the Ukrainian parliament (equivalent to the office of speaker in other countries' parliaments), Volodymyr Rybak, announced the next day that he had signed a parliamentary decree condemning the use of force and urging all institutions (the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Cabinet of Ministers, etc.) to cease immediately all military actions against protesters.[67] Parliament also suspended Zakharchenko from his duties.

On 21 February, President Yanukovych signed a compromise deal with opposition leaders. It promised constitutional changes to restore certain powers to parliament and called for early elections to be held by December.

Despite the agreement, thousands continued to protest in central Kyiv, and the demonstrators took full control of the city's government district: the parliament building, the president's administration quarters, the cabinet, and the Interior Ministry.[68][69] On 21 February, a bill to remove Yanukovych was introduced in parliament.[70] On the same day, Yanukovych left for Kharkiv.[71]

On 22 February, the protesters were reported to be in control of Kyiv, and Yanukovych was said to have fled the capital for eastern Ukraine.[72][73] The parliament voted 328-0 in favour of removing Yanukovych from office and scheduled new presidential elections for 25 May.[74]

Parliament named its chairman, Oleksandr Turchynov, as interim president on 23 February.[75] A warrant for the arrest of Yanukovych was issued by the new government on 24 February.[76] Over the next few days, Russian nationalist politicians and activists organised rallies in Crimea and urged Russia to help defend the region from advancing "fascists" from the rest of Ukraine.[77]

18 February, 2014 Edit

On 18 February at 16:00, the Kyiv Metro stopped all service because of a terrorist threat.[78][79][80]

Initial clashes (Mariinskyi and Lypky) Edit

That morning, around 20,000 demonstrators marched on the parliament building[82] as that body was set to consider opposition demands for a new constitution and government. Around 09:45, the demonstrators broke through the police barricade of several personnel-transport trucks near the building of the Central Officers' Club of Ukraine[83] and pushed the cordon of police aside.[84] The clashes started after some two dozen demonstrators moved a police vehicle blocking their path to parliament.[60] At 10:00, a member of parliament representing Batkivshchyna, Lesya Orobets, reported that police armed with Fort-500T shotguns had begun to attack with flash and stun grenades from Shovkovychna Street and Lypska Street.[83]

As the column neared the parliament building at 10:08, it met resistance from another cordon of police officers.[83] There were reports that the number of protesters had swelled to 50,000.[83] At 10:18, according to other reports, explosions and smoke were seen on Instytutska Street as people started to tear up roadway paving blocks.[83] Protesters started to throw the pavement blocks at the police, while officers defending themselves with shields tried to subdue the crowd with stun grenades.[83] Protesters who had barricaded themselves near the Dynamo Stadium colonnade began setting fire to tires.[83] At about 10:30, parliament was set to vote on whether to restore the 2004 constitution.[83] However, it did not happen as Chairman Rybak did not register the bill.[60]

At 10:33, the street fights between protesters and the police shifted to Shovkovychna Street.[83] Protesters started to wave ₴200 banknotes in the face of some of Yanukovych's police forces-saying that they were mercenaries-in Mariinskyi Park.[83] An activist, Oleksandr Aronets, reported that snipers were targeting civilians.[83] By 11:00, protesters had sustained serious wounds.[83] Molotov cocktails[83] were thrown by the protesters, and on Shovkovnycha Street, a barricade of dump trucks was set on fire.[83]

At 11:23, the Berkut special police forces tried to launch an assault on the crowd, but the protesters attacked back.[83] Two minutes later, the first report came that protesters were breaking down the doors of the Party of Regions headquarters on Lypska Street.[83] At 11:30, protesters-including the journalist Tetyana Chornovol[60]-sacked and set fire to the building.[85][86] Two persons died as a result, including a programmer who worked at the headquarters. At 12:12, Minister of Healthcare Raisa Bohatyriova was attacked by protesters as she left Mariinskyi Park, but she escaped unharmed.[83] By 12:30, the police had regained control of the Party of Regions office.[60]

By 13:00, thousands of police officers had encircled the government district and begun chasing down protesters.[60] One protester with a head wound told the Kyiv Post that charging police officers had "smashed everybody" in their path.

Around 13:30, four officers on Instytutska Street were stationed atop a building, lobbing stun grenades at the crowd and shooting, when protesters stormed the building and set part of it on fire. The protesters forced their way to the roof, forcing the police to retreat.[60] The building on Instytutska Street was described as the scene of the day's most violent clashes. Berkut and Internal Troops servicemen opened a full-scale assault, firing directly into the crowd.[83] There were reports of police using water cannons to break through.[83]

By mid-afternoon, police officers using tear gas drove as many as 10,000 protesters from Mariinskyi Park, where barricades had been built earlier in the day. Demonstrators threw stun grenades, filling the park with smoke. Other anti-government activists tried to keep the pro-government and anti-government forces apart.[60]

Multiple news outlets published photographs showing the police armed with AK-74 assault rifles.[87][88] Former Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Hennadiy Moskal speculated that they were Alpha Group units.[89] A Berkut leader, Vladimir Krashevsky, said the armed police officers in black with yellow armbands were part of a Berkut unit that had been deployed to help evacuate the interior troops.[90]

Protesters re-occupied City Hall.[91] And according to the Russian state-owned newspaper Izvestia, opposition activists armed with bats and iron rods beat a computer engineer, Valery Konstantinovich Zakharov, to death in the raid on the Party of Regions office.[92]

At 15:45, hundreds of riot police officers advanced toward parliament, attacking protesters.[93] An officer grabbed the gas mask of a Kyiv Post journalist on Instytutska Street and said of the police advance: "I love it! We love it!"[60]

Throughout the day of 18 February 2014, protesters lit tires, threw and launched Molotov cocktails, bars of steel and other projectiles at lines of Berkut police. At 17:04, armed Berkut untied the wire at the Mykhaila Hrushevskoho Street barricade gate near Dynamo Stadium and penetrated with some surprise. EuroMaidan protesters were watching a drone hovering from the opposite direction, with their backs turned to the police. Hundreds of Berkut began throwing grenades, two of which injured U.S. photographer Mark Estabrook and countless others while discharging their pistols and shotguns. Euromaidan protesters and civilians began a mass retreat toward the next gate in a barricade on Khreschatyk Street. There were many injuries and several deaths.[94]

At 20:00, Pro-Russian sources had reported that 50 unknown or presumably Pro-Russian assailants were trying to break into the Canadian embassy.[95] On the same day, a Global Affairs Canada spokesperson acknowledged that protesters had taken "shelter" and were "peaceful and have not caused any damage or harm to staff." In 2015, it was revealed that the embassy had deliberately opened its gates after spotting a Canadian passport-wielding EuroMaidan protester being chased by Berkut. Upon entry of the unknown passport-wielding EuroMaidan protester, a deluge of EuroMaidan protesters stormed the embassy and occupied the main lobby, using the embassy as a safe haven from Berkut. The embassy was used to treat the wounded during the evening of February 18. EuroMaidan protesters later left the embassy voluntarily, leaving flowers. Unnamed European allies later asserted, that given the prolonged occupation and lack of resistance by Canadian foreign service officers, Canada played an intentional and deliberate role in enabling EuroMaidan protesters. Contemporary media sources argue that Prime Minister Stephen Harper never acknowledged the true extent of the security breach.[96]

Following the warning, the police advanced on thousands of protesters on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) with guns, a water cannon, and an armored personnel carrier. Tents housing protesters were burning on the main square.[60] The police justified their actions as part of an anti-terror campaign against "individuals who had clearly armed themselves".[97] Opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk called on the police to retreat 200 meters up Instytutska Street and urged both sides to call a truce until morning.[22] Protesters on the square stacked tires and other burning debris to create a wall of fire between themselves and security forces.[22]

The TV channel 5 Kanal's broadcast was shut down countrywide[22][98] but remained available via satellite (with a brief interruption) and a live feed on YouTube.[22] It resumed service some hours later.

Presidential adviser Hanna Herman said that negotiations between the government and the opposition would only happen once peace was restored and the crowds retreated, and that "calling further for armed conflict is a great crime against the Ukrainian people and the Ukrainian state."[22] General Prosecutor of Ukraine Viktor Pshonka said: "Organisers of mass protests will be held accountable. We will demand the heaviest punishment both for those who revved people up to take part in today's action and for those who organised and controlled them."[97]

At 01:35 the next morning, street lights were switched off around the square. The activists believed that this heralded the beginning of a decisive assault.[100]

Emerging from a meeting with President Yanukovych, opposition leader Vitali Klitschko told Hromadske TV that the talks had not been successful. Klitschko said that opposition leaders had listened for more than an hour to Yanukovych's claims that they were to blame for the 20 deaths on 18 February. The president also demanded that the opposition force the protesters to leave Maidan Nezalezhnosti.[22] He reportedly threatened opposition leaders with criminal prosecution.[101]

On 20 February, three opposition parties ( Batkivshchyna, UDAR, and Svoboda) said in a statement: "We never have and never will call people to arms. This is our principled position. The death of each person is a personal tragedy for each of us."[103] Later that day, the parties said, "To hold talks with the regime, the policies of which led to the deaths of many people, is an extremely unpleasant thing, but we must do everything possible and even the impossible to prevent further bloodshed."[104] They said that dissolving the protests would be "counterproductive and unrealistic" and stated: "It was not we who brought Maidan together, and it is not for us to disperse it! People will decide themselves what to do depending on when and how their demands are satisfied."[104]

The Kyiv Metro was closed and main roads blocked by police.[105] Bigger stores and malls on Khreshchatyk were also closed, but according to a Euronews correspondent, "Life away from the barricades is business as usual."[106]

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) launched an "anti-terrorist" operation, while the intelligence services began investigating unnamed politicians over what was described as an illegal attempt to seize power.[105] The decision to begin the anti-terrorist operation involved the SBU, the Interior Ministry, the Ministry of Defence, the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, and the central and local governments, according to a statement on the SBU website.[109] According to political analyst Taras Berezovets, the decree meant that the SBU could search protesters, seize their property, and detain them at will, "without a court order or other legal safeguards."[109]

In the early morning, Olena Lukash announced that the opposition had refused to sign a declaration disapproving of radical measures. President Yanukovych demanded that the opposition stop occupying buildings and seizing arms; the opposition, however, would not concede.[110] The acting minister of defence, Pavlo Lebedyev, acknowledged that he had sent some airborne troops from Dnipropetrovsk to Kyiv.[111] Ciphered telegrams were discovered in which Yuriy Ilyin, the newly appointed chief of the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, gave direct orders to deploy military units.[112]

Also on 19 February, a military An-26 made a secret flight from Kyiv to Russia to pick up a large batch of anti-riot weapons and ammunition; this only became known in 2015.[113]

A Euronews correspondent on Independence Square reported that protesters were arriving "from all parts of Ukraine".[114] By 14:50, about 5,000 remained on the square.[109] Right Sector occupied the Kyiv Central Post Office and the State Committee for Television and Radio, with the post office serving as a new headquarters.[109][115]

President Yanukovych fired the chief of the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Volodymyr Zamana, and replaced him with Ilyin, who was previously the commander of the Ukrainian Navy.[116] The Ministry of Defence announced that it was redeploying units around the country to guard military facilities.[116] The director of the SBU, Oleksandr Yakymenko, said that military bases and arms depots had been attacked in several regions.[117]

Following a meeting between government and opposition leaders late at night, both sides declared a truce and agreed to start negotiations.[109][120] President Yanukovych said in a statement that he had agreed to "start negotiations with the aim of ending bloodshed and stabilising the situation in the state in the interests of social peace".[120] According to opposition politician Yatsenyuk, the truce included a pledge from Yanukovych not to launch a police assault that night.[120] Right Sector did not agree to the truce.[121] A Euronews correspondent on Independence Square reported that the number of protesters had grown, saying, "In general, all I have heard from people is the more they are attacked and the worse they are beaten, the more determined they are to stand back up and resume the struggle."[122]

Around 03:50, activists claimed that they had torn a shoulder patch from the uniform of a Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) soldier during the clashes, brandishing the patch as alleged proof of Russian involvement.[124] Protesters at Independence Square continued to hear gunshots, despite the ceasefire agreement.[125] Around 04:20, five buses carrying protesters from Ivano-Frankivsk arrived.[126]

Each side blamed the other for igniting the deadly conflict.[127] Yakymenko blamed Ukraine's current Euromaidan government, claiming they were responsible for hiring snipers on 20 February.[128] In a statement, the Presidential Administration of Ukraine claimed that the protesters had gone on the offensive: "They are working in organised groups. They are using firearms, including sniper rifles. They are shooting to kill," it said.[129] Protesters accused the police of starting the conflict by throwing Molotov cocktails and improvised explosive devices.[127] Opposition politician Klitschko issued a statement saying: "Armed thugs have been let loose in the streets to attack people and create an illusion that there is a confrontation between citizens."[129]

At 09:25, protesters pushed the Berkut back to the October Palace[130] after security forces tried to set fire to Kyiv Conservatory, which was being used as a field hospital for wounded protesters.[131] At 09:32, it was announced that parliament would not convene.[130] Euromaidan protesters marched on the police with shields and Molotov cocktails and forced them to retreat, thus regaining control of Independence Square and capturing up to 67 police officers.[132][133] Around 10:49, law enforcement personnel were captured while sleeping in the Ukrainian House and during clashes on barricades near the October Palace.[132] Many of the men were only 18 or 19 years old, were not trained, and were armed only with rubber truncheons. Those with minor injuries were treated by medics.[132] The captured police were from Crimea, the central-eastern cities Dnipropetrovsk and Kryvyi Rih, and eastern Luhansk.[127] Interior Troops soldiers, of whom almost 100 surrendered during the clashes (mostly conscripts aged 19-20[134]),[135] were held prisoner at the headquarters of the Energy Company of Ukraine and at the October Palace.[132]

At 10:00, between 10,000 and 20,000 demonstrators remained, according to the Kyiv Post, and at least 42 people had been killed, primarily by police gunfire.[132] According to a UNIAN correspondent, there were more than 30,000 people on Independence Square.[136] At 10:55, the chief of the presidential administration, Andriy Klyuev, announced that the president was prepared to sign a treaty with the opposition on the demanded changes to the Constitution of Ukraine, and that the ongoing clashes should compel politicians to find a quick consensus.[137]

At 10:00, Euromaidan's activists picketed the main office at the Kyiv Metro station Politekhnichnyi Instytut, demanding that the system be reopened.[138] A former head of the Kyiv City State Administration, Ivan Saliy, also called for the reopening of the metro.[139] At 16:00 that day, the Titushky were transported by metro from the Pozniaky station to the Pecherska station, Lvivska Gazeta reported.[140] The government also closed highways and railway access.

The head of the Kyiv City State Administration, Volodymyr Makeyenko, resigned from the Party of Regions but said that he would continue to perform his duties to ensure that the city functioned properly.[129] He then ordered the reopening of the Kyiv Metro.[129] By 15:00, the metro was still not running, and ground-based transport in the city was scarce.[143] The metro was partly reopened in the early evening, but interchange stations remained closed.[144]

Radio Liberty published video footage of police special forces shooting protesters with Kalashnikov and sniper rifles.[146] Acting Interior Minister Zakharchenko announced that combat weapons had been provided to the police, saying in an address to the nation, "We signed relevant orders as part of the Antiterrorist Center's work: the law enforcement officials have been provided with combat weapons, and they will be used in line with the law on police."[147] The ministry's website said the riot police had the right to use their weapons to free hostages being held by protesters.[148] The ministry further stated that a sniper had injured 20 of its police officers.[148]

The above-mentioned clashes erupted shortly before three visiting EU foreign ministers- Radosław Sikorski of Poland, Laurent Fabius of France, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany-were due to meet with President Yanukovych to push for a compromise with the Ukrainian opposition.[150][151] The meeting was delayed for security reasons and began an hour late.[150] Before the meeting, Fabius said in an interview with BFM TV: "Our purpose is to cause the Ukrainian administration to conduct elections. There is no solution other than elections."[152] The negotiations lasted six hours.[153] Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland told reporters soon afterward, "It was agreed with Yanukovych that there was a willingness to hold early elections this year, both presidential and parliamentary." Tusk also said that Yanukovych "was willing to form a national unity government in the next 10 days and to change the constitution before the summer". Further talks were scheduled to negotiate the signing of the relevant document.[154]

The United States imposed visa bans on 20 Ukrainian officials it considered "responsible for ordering human rights abuses related to political oppression".[150] The European Union introduced a visa ban and a financial asset freeze against those responsible for the violence in Ukraine, and a ban on export to Ukraine of equipment that could be used for repression.[clarification needed ][155][156][157] "The scale of implementation will be taken forward in the light of developments in Ukraine," the EU Council concluded.[158]

The leader of the ruling Party of Regions, Oleksandr Yefremov, travelled to Luhansk to meet with local leaders and law enforcement agents to discuss the possibility of southeastern Ukraine's declaring independence and seceding from the state.[159][nb 1] The chairman of the Supreme Council of Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov, travelled to Moscow, where he announced that the Autonomous Republic of Crimea would secede from Ukraine if there were a change of power.[162][163]

The head of the Kyiv City State Administration, Volodymyr Makeyenko, and 17 MPs resigned from the Party of Regions.[166] In Rivne and Zhytomyr, the Party of Regions formally disbanded, with all MPs from those regions leaving the party as well.[167]

Ten Party of Regions and two independent MPs[nb 2] called for a return to the parliamentary-presidential form of government.[168][nb 3] They also called on security forces to "execute the oath they swore to the Ukrainian people, not to follow criminal orders to use firearms, not to allow the participation of law enforcers in provocations involving gangs against the peaceful public and protesters all over Ukraine".[168]

At 16:42, parliament convened for an emergency sitting.[170] The Party of Regions did not take part.[171] According to a UNIAN correspondent, 227 MPs out of 450-mostly from the opposition, but some from the Party of Regions-were present.[172] Out of 238 deputies present, 236 voted to condemn the recent violence, ban the use of weapons against protesters, and withdraw troops and the police deployed against them.[173][174] The entire parliamentary faction of the Communist Party of Ukraine and some 80% of the Party of Regions chose to miss the session.[175] Lawmakers barred chiefs and commanders of the Interior Troops, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the SBU, and other government agencies from carrying out any counter-terrorism operations because they violated the Constitution of Ukraine.[176] They were also ordered to stop blocking roads and bridges, squares and streets in Kyiv and other cities and towns.[176] The Party of Regions MPs at the sitting agreed to form an "anti-crisis group".[177]

Late in the evening, it was announced that five more MPs had left the parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions.[178]

The Armed Forces' deputy chief of staff, Lieutenant-General Yuri Dumansky, resigned because he disagreed with the involvement of the army in the conflict.[181] "Today the army is being involved in the civil conflict, which could lead to the mass deaths of civilians and soldiers," he said.[182] At around midnight, journalist Artem Shevchenko, referring to his sources in the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, announced that 10 BTRs had departed from Kozachia (Cossack) Bay, where the Black Sea Fleet of Russia is based, escorted by DAI (Road Auto Inspection) vehicles.[183] According to Shevchenko, 1,500 airborne soldiers and 400 marines-including the 25th Airborne Brigade, the 1st Marine Brigade, the 831st Anti-sabotage Unit, and the 2nd Marine Spetsnaz-had been transferred on 20 February under the command of the SBU for the anti-terrorist operation.[184]

A compromise deal was agreed to on 21 February after hours of negotiations led by the European Union mediators and Foreign Ministers Radosław Sikorski of Poland, Laurent Fabius of France, and Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany.[189][190] Officially called the Agreement on settlement of political crisis in Ukraine, but unofficially called the 21 February Agreement, it was signed by both opposition leaders and the president after overnight negotiations (read the full text of the agreement here).[191] The agreed-to provisions included a restoration of the constitution as it was between 2004 and 2010; constitutional reform to be completed by September; early presidential elections no later than December 2014; an investigation into the violence conducted under joint monitoring of the administration, the opposition, and the Council of Europe; a veto on imposing a state of emergency; amnesty for protesters arrested since 17 February; the surrender of public buildings occupied by protesters; the forfeiture of illegal weapons; "new electoral laws", and the formation of a new Central Election Commission.[192][193] The three EU foreign ministers signed the document as witnesses,[194] but not the Russian mediator Vladimir Lukin, because he had no mandate to sign an agreement on the crisis.[195][196]

The 450-seat parliament voted unanimously, 386-0, to return to the 2004 constitution, and then its 450 members voted 332-0 to suspend acting Interior Minister Zakharchenko.[182] Another bill made changes to the Criminal Code, allowing for the release of Yulia Tymoshenko.[197] 310 MPs voted in favour of the measure, including 54 from the Party of Regions and 32 Communists.[198][197] Mykola Rudkovsky introduced a bill to impeach President Yanukovych.[199] Parliament also adopted a resolution late that evening that ordered all Interior Ministry troops and police officers to return to their barracks.[71]

Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh rejected the agreement, saying, "We have to state the obvious fact that the criminal regime had not yet realised either the gravity of its evil doing." He noted that the agreement did not include provisions for the arrest of Interior Minister Zakharchenko; the punishing of Berkut commanders alleged to have been involved in the murder of civilians; the removal of the general prosecutor and defence minister; a ban on the Party of Regions and Communist Party; and guarantees of safety for those involved in the opposition. He called for the "people's revolution" to continue until power had been completely removed from the governing authorities.[182] Euromaidan leader Andriy Parubiy insisted that elections be held as soon as possible and reiterated that one of the main demands of protesters had been the resignation of President Yanukovych.[200] AutoMaidan also announced that it would not accept anything short of Yanukovych's resignation.[201]

Vitali Klitschko apologised to the crowd on Independence Square after shaking hands with Yanukovych.[202] Protesters there responded to the deal by booing opposition leaders. Activist Volodymyr Parasiuk warned from the stage that if Yanukovych did not resign by 10:00 the next day, an armed coup would be staged.[203] Oleh Lyashko echoed the demand, saying, "Either he resigns, or we take him away." Outside of Kyiv, it was later discovered that the summer home of pro-Russian politician Viktor Medvedchuk had been set on fire.[204]

By late afternoon, hundreds of riot police officers guarding the presidential compound and nearby government buildings had vanished.[71] Radosław Sikorski, the Polish foreign minister, described the withdrawal of forces as "astonishing", noting that it was not part of the agreement.[205] The riot police had begun withdrawing early in the morning because they feared that Yanukovych's government would pin the responsibility for the violence on them, and because they feared being attacked after protesters stole around 1,200 pistols and Kalashnikov rifles from the police on 18 February during the occupation of government buildings in Lviv.[71] The Ukrainian Interior Ministry was left without leadership. Deputy Interior Minister Viktor Dubovik ordered the riot police to leave the city, but it is unclear where this order originated.[71] Opposition member Serhiy Pashynsky arranged escorts out of the city for more than 5,000 officers, Interior Ministry forces, and other special forces.[71] After the riot police vanished, Andriy Parubiy reported that Euromaidan self-defence had peacefully gained control over Kyiv and its government buildings,[206] and that the military was standing with the opposition.[207]

A new parliamentary coalition was created after 28 MPs left the Party of Regions' faction.[208] Within the remaining faction, a "group of 31 deputies with a special position" was formed by Sergiy Tigipko "to persuade other Party of Regions MPs to vote progressively".[209]

On 21 February, President Yanukovych and parliament declared 22 and 23 February to be days of mourning "due to the loss of human life as a result of mass disturbances".[210]

Parliament Chairman Volodymyr Rybak submitted his resignation in parliament on 22 February, citing illness.[211] Yanukovych's whereabouts were unknown, despite media reports that he had flown to Kharkiv (according to the governor of Kharkiv Oblast at the time, Mykhailo Dobkin, Yanukovych was in Kharkiv that day[71]). Oleksandr Turchynov said that most of the ministers had disappeared, including Interior Minister Zakharchenko, who was reported to have fled to Belarus.[212]

In the afternoon, the Rada voted 328-0[213] to remove Yanukovich from his post and to schedule a presidential election for 25 May.[74][214] This vote did not follow the impeachment process specified by the Ukrainian Constitution, which would have involved formally charging Yanukovych with a crime, a review of the charge by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, and a three-fourths majority vote-at least 338 votes in favor-in parliament. Instead, parliament declared that Yanukovych "withdrew from his duties in an unconstitutional manner" and cited "circumstances of extreme urgency" as the reason for early elections.[215] Lawmakers then elected opposition leader Oleksandr Turchynov to be the chairman of Parliament, acting president and prime minister of Ukraine; this decision also violated the Constitution, according to which the impeached President was to be succeeded by the Prime Minister Serhiy Arbuzov.[75][216][217]

On 23 February, parliament deputy Oleh Lyashko claimed that Yanukovych had been seen at the Russian naval base in Sevastopol, preparing to flee the country on board a Russian military vessel.[221] Journalist Tetyana Chornovol speculated that he was actually trying to flee on his private yacht, also in Sevastopol.[222] According to court testimony of a bodyguard, Yanukovych and his family flew from Kharkiv to Donetsk by helicopter, then drove to Berdiansk on the Azov Sea, from where they were flown by aircraft with Russian military markings, via two other airfields, to a Russian facility in Yalta, Crimea, then moved to Russian base in Sevastopol, and departed late on 23 February.[223]

On 22 February, 2014, Yulia Tymoshenko was released from prison and addressed more than 100,000 people on Independence Square.[229] The same day, parliament appointed Arsen Avakov as acting interior minister.[230] Lawmakers also ousted Viktor Pshonka as general prosecutor of Ukraine in a no-confidence vote.[231]

On 23 February, the second day of national mourning, parliament voted to abolish the law on language policies that had given the Russian, Romanian, and Hungarian languages the official status of regional languages in some areas.[3][232] However, this measure was later vetoed by the acting president, who said he would not sign the bill until new legislation protecting minority languages was developed.[233] The same day, parliament dismissed Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara, Health Minister Raisa Bogatyrova, and Education Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk and nationalised Yanukovych's private estate Mezhyhirya.[3][234] Warrants were issued for former Incomes Minister Oleksandr Klymenko and former Prosecutor General Pshonka.[3] Parliament also passed amendments restoring its power to appoint and dismiss judges, which had belonged to the Supreme Council of Justice.[235]

On 24 February, parliament dismissed Social Policies Minister Natalia Korolevska and Culture Minister Leonid Novokhatko;[237] it also dismissed Ihor Sorkin as governor of the National Bank of Ukraine and replaced him with Stepan Kubiv.[238][239] The same day, it appointed Valentyn Nalyvaichenko as head of the Security Service of Ukraine after dismissing Oleksandr Yakymenko from the post.[240] Meanwhile, the leader of the Party of Regions faction, Oleksandr Yefremov, declared that the party was moving into the opposition.[241] Seventy-seven of its MPs had left the faction over the past few days.[241]

On Tuesday, 25 February, acting President Turchynov called for the formation of a national unity government by Thursday.[242] (Two days earlier, he had asked for the formation of such a government by Tuesday.[243]) Also on the 25th, Anatoliy Kinakh and 32 other deputies, mostly former Party of Regions members, created the Economic Development faction.[244][245]

On 27 February 2014 the first Yatsenyuk government headed by Arseniy Yatsenyuk was formed.[248] The cabinet was formed as a coalition of the parties Batkivschyna, UDAR and Svoboda and the parliamentary factions Economic Development and Sovereign European Ukraine and other independent MPs.[249]

On 24 February, parliament decided to release all political prisoners, including the father and son in the Pavlichenko criminal case,[250] and terminated the powers of five judges of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, appointed from parliament's quota, for violating their oath.[251] Lawmakers also offered to dismiss, for the same reason, two judges appointed by the president of Ukraine, and called on the Council of Judges of Ukraine to convene an extraordinary congress within three days to consider dismissing five Constitutional Court judges appointed by the council. In the same resolution, parliament assigned the prosecutor general of Ukraine to begin criminal proceedings against all judges who, in the opinion of the People's Deputies of Ukraine, were guilty of adopting on 30 September 2010 a decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (No. 20-rp/2010) on the procedure of introducing constitutional amendments. On 27 February, judges of the Constitutional Court sent a letter to European organizations, international organizations, and human rights institutions questioning the constitutionality of the parliamentary resolution.[252]

On 27 February, Yanukovych was accused of having stolen $70 billion from the state budget.[253]

The Security Service of Ukraine arrested the former chief of its counterintelligence service, Volodymyr Byk.[254] On 3 July 2014, former Prime Minister Mykola Azarov was placed on the international wanted list for alleged abuse of power.[255]

On 28 February, Yanukovych attended a press conference in southern Russia and answered questions from mostly Russian reporters. He said that the early presidential elections scheduled for late May were illegal and that he "would not be participating in them". He also said that while the 21 February agreement could have calmed the situation, the opposition had not agreed to it.[256]

Russia considered the overthrow of Yanukovych to be an illegal coup (and a "military seizure of power") and did not recognize the interim government.[257][258]

On 11 March 2014 the [ Ukrainian National Council for TV and Radio Broadcasting uk; ru] instructed all cable operators to stop transmitting a number of Russian channels, including the international versions of the main state-controlled stations- Rossiya 1, Channel One, and NTV-as well as Rossiya 24.[260]

On 25 February, acting Interior Minister Avakov signed a decree dissolving the Berkut.[266] In March, Russia announced that the Crimean Berkut unit would preserve its name as it was incorporated into the Russian Interior Ministry.[267][nb 4]

The pro-Russian Ukrainian Front organisation held a meeting on 22 February with representatives from southern and eastern Ukraine.[271] Andriy Kluyev, an organiser of the event, said the group intended to discuss the federalisation of the country into semi-autonomous regions.[272] Following the agreement with the opposition and measures passed by parliament, Yanukovych flew from Kyiv to Kharkiv to attend the Ukrainian Front congress; sources indicated that Berkut forces had gathered in Kharkiv in anticipation of the event.[273][274][275] As Yuriy Lutsenko reported, past midnight on 22 February, the SBU opened criminal proceedings against Governor Mikhail Dobkin of Kharkiv and Mayor Hennadiy Kernes for advocating separatism.[276]

At the Congress of the Southern and Eastern regions in Kharkiv on 22 February, the deputies passed a resolution declaring that they were ready to take responsibility for protecting constitutional order in their territory. They stated that the recent events in Kyiv had paralyzed the central government and destabilised the country.[277] They also signed a statement rejecting the authority of parliament.[278][unreliable source ] The Interior Ministry reported that Governor Dobkin and Mayor Kernes then fled to Russia.[279]

On 23 February, parliament adopted a bill to repeal the country's law on minority languages. If signed by the president, the bill would have disestablished Russian as a minority language of Ukraine, although regions like Crimea are populated by a Russian-speaking majority.[280] The Christian Science Monitor reported that the bill "only served to infuriate Russian-speaking regions, [who] saw the move as more evidence that the antigovernment protests in Kyiv that toppled Yanukovych's government were intent on pressing for a nationalistic agenda."[281] Acting President Turchynov vetoed the bill on 28 February.[282]

Also on 23 February, clashes erupted in Kharkiv between thousands of equally sized pro- and anti-government rallies, and Mayor Kernes was blocked from entering the City Council building.[283] Pro-Russian protesters stood guard over the statue of Vladimir Lenin in the city center,[284] but the deputy head of the Regional State Administration announced that the city would dismantle the statue regardless on 25 February.[285]

On 24 February, acting Interior Minister Avakov announced that a criminal case had been launched against Yevhen Zhylin, leader of the Kharkiv-based anti-Euromaidan organisation Oplot.[286]

On 1 March, thousands of people in Kharkiv, Donetsk, Simferopol, Odessa, Luhansk, Melitopol, Yevpatoria, Kerch, and Mariupol protested against the new government.[287][288][289] Public surveys in April revealed that most people in Ukraine's eastern regions considered all levels of the government illegitimate. Half of respondents believed that President Turchynov was "illegally occupying his post". Roughly half held the same opinion about the central government led by Prime Minister Yatsenyuk.[290] However, nearly 70% agreed that Yanukovych was also not the legal president of the country.[291]

Following the Ukrainian revolution, a secession crisis began in the Russian-leaning Crimean Peninsula. On 1 March 2014, Yanukovych put into writing his request that President Putin of Russia send military forces "to establish legitimacy, peace, law and order, stability and defending the people of Ukraine".[292] On the same day, Putin requested and received authorization from the Russian parliament to deploy troops to Ukraine in response to the crisis.[259] Russian troops accordingly mobilized throughout Crimea and the southeast of Ukraine. By 2 March, Russian troops had complete control over Crimea.[293][294][295]

The monument to the Russian field marshal Mikhail Kutuzov was demolished in the city of Brody in western Ukraine.[296] The militant group Right Sector was blamed for much of the destruction.[297] In addition, a statue honouring Soviet soldiers was removed from the western Ukrainian city of Stryi.[298][299] In early December 2013, unknown activists partially painted in red and black (similar to the flag of the nationalistic Ukrainian Insurgent Army) a statue honouring the workers of the Arsenal factory in Kyiv who died in 1918.[300] On 28 February, a monument dedicated to Soviet forces who fought in World War II and one dedicated to Soviet soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, both in the city of Dnipropetrovsk, were vandalized and painted with nationalistic slogans.[301] On its English-language Twitter account, the Russian Foreign Ministry described the targeting of Russian- and Soviet-built monuments as " Russophobic vandalism" and an "outrage", and demanded that it be stopped.[302]

On 19 February 2014, UEFA announced that it had decided to change the venue of the 2013-14 UEFA Europa League Round of 32 match between Dynamo Kyiv and Valencia from Olympic Stadium in Kyiv to GSP Stadium, in Nicosia, Cyprus, because of the riots in Kyiv.[304][305][306]

Dynamo Kyiv and the other clubs competing in the Round of 32 held a minute of silence for the victims in Kyiv before the match, and the athletes played wearing mourning armbands.[307][308][309]

On 25 February, subsequent games of the 2013-14 Ukrainian Basketball SuperLeague were postponed.[310][311] On 26 February, the second part of the 2013-14 Ukrainian Premier League was suspended because of the situation in the country.[312]

On 3 March, a scheduled friendly match between the United States and Ukraine in Kharkiv was moved to Nicosia because of safety concerns regarding potential instability in Kharkiv Oblast.[313]

Three HC Donbass home KHL playoff games were moved from Donetsk's Druzhba Arena to Slovnaft Arena in Bratislava, Slovakia.[314] After playing Game 7 of their first-round series against Dinamo Riga and Games 3 and 4 in the second round against Lev Praha in Bratislava, the Slovak capital, the team returned to Donetsk for the sixth game of the series against Lev.

Signing of the European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement Edit

The First Yatsenyuk Government signed on 21 March 2014 the European Union-Ukraine Association Agreement[316][317] with the DCFTA to be signed after the presidential election in May 2014.[318][319]

After Euromaidan, eight former officials tied to Yanukovych's Party of Regions were found to have committed suicide.[320] When Newsweek in summer 2015 approached the General Prosecutor's Office about the deaths, the office initially replied that all information about them was a state secret.[320] The prosecutor's office later said that four of the deaths were being investigated as murders; a suspect was also charged with murder in a fifth case, the death of prosecutor Sergei Melnychuk.[320]

From 18 to 19 February, the official death toll according to the Ministry of Healthcare was 28, of whom 10 were police and Berkut troops.[322]

By 13:00 on 20 February, at least 34 more protesters had been fatally shot by the police, with reporters verifying the bodies (15 at the Kozatsky Hotel, 12 at the Hotel Ukraine, 7 at the Central Post Office).[132] In the early afternoon, Kyiv Post journalists reported a further eight bodies on Khreshchatyk Street.[132] According to the coordinator of medical services on Independence Square, Oleh Musiy, between 70 and 100 protesters had been killed by 17:30 on 20 February.[323] Meanwhile, the Kyiv City State Administration reported 67 deaths based on the number of bodies delivered to forensics.[324] The Ministry of Healthcare reported 75 deaths since the start of the conflict.[25]

CNN reported that officials had intercepted a telephone call between Foreign Minister Urmas Paet of Estonia and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton in which Paet relayed a doctor's testimony that the sniper killings of protesters and Berkut troops had been committed by the same people.[325] Paet later asserted that he had not been implying that the opposition was involved, but merely relaying the content of the doctor's testimony.[326] Olga Bogomolets, the doctor who allegedly claimed that protesters and Berkut troops had come under fire from the same source, said that she had not made such a claim to Mr. Paet; that she had not implied that the opposition was involved in the killings; and that the government had informed her that an investigation was underway.[327]

Hennadiy Moskal-a former deputy head of Ukraine's main security agency, the SBU, and of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA)-suggested in an interview published in the Ukrainian newspaper Dzerkalo Tizhnya that snipers from the MIA and SBU, not foreign agents, were responsible for the shootings and had acted on contingency plans dating back to Soviet times. He said: "In addition to this, snipers received orders to shoot not only protesters, but also police forces. This was all done in order to escalate the conflict, in order to justify the police operation to clear Maidan."[328][329]

He further suggested that the current minister of internal affairs, Avakov, and the chairman of the SBU, Nalivaichenko, were protecting the personnel who actually planned and carried out the killings, in order to prevent backlash against the ministry and to avoid a loss of prestige.[329] Avakov said that the conflict had been provoked by a "non-Ukrainian" third party and that an investigation was ongoing.[330]

On 31 March 2014, The Daily Beast published photos and videos showing that the snipers were members of the SBU's "anti-terrorist" Alpha unit who had been trained in Russia. The media suggested that it was not the Ukrainian riot police who fired on the protesters, as previously believed, although the members of the Alpha team are Ukrainian citizens.[331]

The perception that Yanukovych was trying to establish closer ties with Russia played a major role in the protests. Yanukovych accepted "bail-out" money-$2 billion out of a $15 billion package-from Russia, and this was interpreted as a sign that he would seek close ties with Putin.[82] Russian officials had been pressuring the Ukrainian administration to take decisive action to crush the protests, and the police assault on Euromaidan protesters was ordered hours after the $2 billion from Russia was transferred.[332][333] Several government ministers from across Europe blamed Russia for exacerbating the violence.[334]

In an interview on 20 February, a retired[335] colonel of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Russia (GRU), Aleksandr Musienko, said that the conflict could only be solved by force, and that Ukraine had proven it could not exist as an independent, sovereign state.[335][336] According to government documents released by Ukrainian former Deputy Interior Minister Hennadiy Moskal, Russian officials served as advisers to the operations against protesters. Code-named "Wave" and "Boomerang", the operations involved the use of snipers to disperse crowds and capture the protesters' headquarters in the House of Trade Unions. Before some police officers defected, the plans included the deployment of 22,000 combined security troops in Kyiv.[337] According to the documents, the former first deputy of the Russian GRU stayed at the Kyiv Hotel, played a major role in the preparations, and was paid by the Security Services of Ukraine.[338] According to Reuters, the authenticity of the documents could not be confirmed.[339] Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said that the conflict had been provoked by a "non-Ukrainian" third party and that an investigation was ongoing.[330]

During a press conference on 3 April 2014, Ukraine's new interior minister, chief prosecutor, and top security chief implicated more than 30 Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents in the crackdown on protesters, saying that, in addition to taking part in the planning, the agents had flown shipments of large quantities of explosives into an airport near Kyiv. Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, the interim head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), said the agents had been stationed in Kyiv throughout the Euromaidan protests, had been provided with "state telecommunications" while residing at an SBU compound, and had kept in regular contact with Ukrainian security officials. "We have substantiated grounds to consider that these very groups which were located at an SBU training ground took part in the planning and execution of activities of this so-called antiterrorist operation," Nalyvaichenko said. Investigators, he added, had established that Yanukovych's SBU chief, Oleksandr Yakymenko, who later fled the country, had received reports from FSB agents stationed in Ukraine, and that Yakymenko had held several briefings with the agents. The FSB rejected these claims as "groundless accusations" and otherwise refused to comment.[343]

In December 2013, Republican Senator John McCain in company with Democratic senator Chris Murphy visited Yatsenyuk and Tyahnybok and later addressed the crowds:

Ukraine will make Europe better and Europe will make Ukraine better, we are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe.

Speaking to CNN on the same day, McCain said:

What we're trying to do is try to bring about a peaceful transition here, that would stop the violence and give the Ukrainian people what they unfortunately have not had, with different revolutions that have taken place - a real society. This is a grassroots revolution here - it's been peaceful except when the government tried to crack down on them, and the government hasn't tried that since. I'm praising their ability and their desire to demonstrate peacefully for change that I think they deserve. [...] These people love the United States of America, they love freedom - and I don't think you could view this as anything other than our traditional support for people who want free and democratic society.[344]

In a recorded phone conversation leaked on 4 February, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt are heard discussing their wishes for a Ukraine transition to an interim government, and specifically, the roles in which they hoped to see the prominent opposition leaders:

Nuland: "I don't think Klitsch (Klitschko) should go into the government. I don't think it's necessary, I don't think it's a good idea."

Pyatt: "Just let him stay out and do his political homework and stuff."

Nuland: "I think Yats (Yatsenyuk) is the guy who's got the economic experience the governing experience. I just think Klitsch going in... he's going to be at that level working for Yatseniuk, it's just not going to work. We want to try to get somebody with an international personality to come out here and help to midwife this thing."[345]

Nuland was also recorded in the same conversation saying, "Fuck the EU," dismissively referring to slow-moving European efforts to address political paralysis and a looming fiscal crisis in Ukraine.[346][347]

In ^ Luhansk Governor of Luhansk Oblast Valeriy Holenko said: "We believe that Ukraine becoming a federation will ensure the security of the people. No one's going to teach us how to live, how to love our motherland or what political interests we defend".[160][161]

The MP's from the ^ Party of Regions were Andriy Derkach, Volodymyr Zubyk, Hryhoriy Smitiukh, Oleksandr Kuzmuk, Volodymyr Pekhov, Volodymyr Prodyvus, Volodymyr Struk, Mykola Soroka, Viktor Bondar, Viktor Tykhonov, and two independent lawmakers were Oleksandr Tabalov and Andriy Tabalov.[168]

On 4 February 2014 the opposition had unsuccessfully tried to push through an unconditional amnesty for all detained protesters, and the returning to the ^ constitution as it was between 2004 and 2010 in the Ukrainian parliament.[169]

The status of ^ Crimea and Sevastopol is currently under dispute by Ukraine and Russia; Ukraine and the majority of the international community consider Crimea an autonomous republic of Ukraine and Sevastopol one of Ukraine's cities with special status, while Russia, on the other hand, considers Crimea a federal subjects of Russia and Sevastopol one of its federal cities.[268] Both are completely under Russian control.[269]

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^ В Харькове провели масштабный провластный митинг. BBC (in Russian). 30 November 2013.

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^ ЄвромадаЇ в Україні: Запоріжжя вражало кількістю, а в Одесі пам'ятник Дюку 'одягли' у прапор ЄС [YevromadaYi in Ukraine Zaporozhye striking number, and in Odessa Monument to Duke "dressed" in the EU flag] (in Ukrainian). UA: TSN. 24 November 2013.

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^ "Parliament passes statement on Ukraine's aspirations for European integration". Kyiv Post. 22 February 2013. A total of 315 of the 349 MPs registered in the sitting hall supported the document on Friday. The draft document reads that the Verkhovna Rada "within its powers, will ensure that the recommendations concerning the signing of the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the EU, which are stipulated in the resolutions of the European Parliament and the conclusions of the Council of the EU approved on December 10, 2012, at a meeting of the EU foreign ministers, will be fulfilled."

^ Dinan, Desmond; Nugent, Neil (eds.). The European Union in Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 3, 274.

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^ "Europe's new battlefield". The Economist. 22 February 2014. It is the worst violence Ukraine has known in its 22 years as an independent country

^

^

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^ "Frequently asked questions about Ukraine, the EU's Eastern Partnership and the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement" (PDF). European Union External Action. 24 April 2015.

^

(in Ukrainian) ^ Zakharchenko officially allowed firearms to the security forces, TSN(20 February 2014)

^ [tyzhden.ua]

Ukraine Leader Was Defeated Even Before He Was Ousted, The New York Times (3 January 2015)

^ Київське метро зупинило рух [Kyiv subway stopped functioning]. Ukrayinska Pravda. 18 February 2014.

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^

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Ukraine: 'Protesters to be punished' as police come under attack Archived 19 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Euronews (19 February 2014)

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, ^ Interfax-Ukraine (18 March 2010)

Tigipko calls for Rybak's immediate resignation, urgent election of prime minister, Interfax-Ukraine (20 February 2014)

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(in Ukrainian) ^ Kyiv subway fully resumed, and in the street too, Ukrayinska Pravda (24 February 2014).

(in Ukrainian) ^ MPs changed the head of the National Bank, Ukrayinska Pravda (24 February 2014)

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^ Maidan nominates Yatseniuk for prime minister, Interfax-Ukraine (26 February 2014)
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Ukraine defends vote despite unrest, Putin pledges 'respect', Reuters (24 March 2014)

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"^ Ukraine: Russia Angry as Another Soviet Hero Statue Toppled". International Business Times. 25 February 2014.

^ [dubious ]

^ "В Украине растет дезориентация граждан: социологический опрос". 13 February 2017.

^

^ "eeas.europa.eu: "Signatures of the political provisions of the Association Agreement" 21 Mar 2014" (PDF).

^ Ukraine crisis: March 5 as it happened, entry for 15.17, The Telegraph, 5 March 2014.

^ "Ukraine protests: 14 dead in worst day of violence". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 19 February 2014. They moved in hours after Moscow gave Ukraine $2 billion in aid which it had been holding back to demand decisive action to crush the protests.

^ MacKinnon, Mark (22 February 2014). "How Putin's Sochi dream was shattered by Ukraine's nightmare". The Globe and Mail. the Kremlin unsubtly pushing Mr. Yanukovych to use force to clear the fortified tent city on Independence Square [...] shortly before the fighting began, Moscow announced it would pay the next $2-billion tranche.

Massacre in Kiev: the truth in power?. Pravda.ru (original source). 20 February 2014

^ Massacre in Kiev: the truth in power? on YouTube. Pravda.ru. 20 February 2014

^ "John McCain tells Ukraine protesters: We are here to support your just cause" The Guardian, 14 Dec. 2013

Gearan, Anne. ^ In recording of U.S. diplomat, blunt talk on Ukraine, The Washington Post, 6 February 2014.

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The Revolution of Dignity ( Ukrainian: Революція гідності, romanized: Revoliutsiia hidnosti), also known as the Maidan Revolution and the Ukrainian Revolution,[2] took place in Ukraine in February 2014[2] [1] at the end of the Euromaidan protests,[1] when deadly clashes between protesters and the security forces in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv

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Clara Zetkin (/ˈzɛtkɪn/; German: [ˈtsɛtkiːn]; née Eißner [ˈaɪsnɐ]; 5 July 1857 – 20 June 1933) was a German Marxist theorist, communistactivist, and advocate for women's rights.
Zetkin was very interested in women's politics, including the fight for equal opportunities and women's suffrage, through a socialist means. She helped to develop the social-democratic women's movement in Germany; from 1891 to 1917 she edited the SPD women's newspaper Die Gleichheit (Equality).

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Sheikh Jarrah ( Arabic: الشيخ جراح, Hebrew: שייח' ג'ראח) is a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, two kilometres (1+ 1⁄4 miles) north of the Old City, on the road to Mount Scopus.[1][2] It received its name from the 13th-century tomb of Sheikh Jarrah, a physician of Saladin, located within its vicinity. The modern neighborhood was founded in 1865 and gradually became a residential center of Jerusalem's Muslim elite, particularly the al-Husayni family. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, it bordered the no-man's land area between Jordanian-held East Jerusalem and Israeli-held West Jerusalem until the neighborhood was occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Most of its present Palestinian population is said to come from refugees expelled from Jerusalem's Talbiya neighbourhood in 1948.[3]

Certain properties are subject of legal proceedings based on the application of two Israeli laws, the Absentee Property Law and the Legal and Administrative Matters Law of 1970. Israeli nationalists have been working to replace the Palestinian population in the area since 1967.[4] Over a period of five decades, a number of Israeli settlements have been built in and adjacent to Sheikh Jarrah.[5]

Establishment in the 12th century

The Arab neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah was originally a village named after Hussam al-Din al-Jarrahi, who lived in the 12th century and was an emir and the personal physician to Saladin, the military leader whose army liberated[neutrality is disputed] Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Sheikh Hussam received the title jarrah (جراح), meaning "healer" or "surgeon" in Arabic.[6][7]

Sheikh Jarrah established a zawiya (literally "angle, corner", also meaning a small mosque or school), known as the Zawiya Jarrahiyya.[8] Sheikh Jarrah was buried on the grounds of the school. A tomb was built in 1201, which became a destination for worshippers and visitors. A two-story stone building incorporating a flour mill, Qasr el-Amawi, was built opposite the tomb in the 17th century.[9]

Development in the 19th century

The neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah was established on the slopes of Mount Scopus, taking its name from the tomb of Sheikh Jarrah.[10] The initial residential construction works were commenced in 1865 by an important city notable, Rabah al-Husayni, who constructed a large manor among the olive groves near the Sheikh Jarrah tomb and outside the Damascus Gate. This action motivated many other Muslim notables from the Old City to migrate to the area and construct new homes,[11] including the Nashashibis, built homes in the upscale northern and eastern parts of the neighborhood. Sheikh Jarrah began to grow as a Muslim nucleus between the 1870s and 1890s.[9] Prayer at the Sheikh Jarrah tomb is said to bring good luck, particularly for those who raise chickens and eggs.[12] It became the first Arab Muslim-majority neighborhood in Jerusalem to be built outside the walls of the Old City. In the western part, houses were smaller and more scattered.[9]

Because it was founded by Rabah al-Husayni whose home formed the nucleus of Sheikh Jarrah, the neighborhood was locally referred to as the "Husayni Neighborhood."[11] It gradually became a center for the notable al-Husayni family whose members, including Jerusalem mayor Salim al-Husayni and the former treasurer of the Education Ministry in the Ottoman capital of Istanbul, Shukri al-Husayni, built their residences in the neighborhood.[11] Other notables who moved into the neighborhood included Faydi Efendi Shaykh Yunus, the Custodian of the Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and Rashid Efendi al-Nashashibi, a member of the District Administrative Council.[13] A mosque housing the Sheikh Jarrah tomb was built in 1895 on Nablus Road, north of the Old City and the American Colony.[12][14] In 1898 the Anglican St. George's School was built in Sheikh Jarrah and soon became the secondary educational institution where Jerusalem's elite sent their sons.[11]

Population around 1900

At the Ottoman census of 1905, the Sheikh Jarrah nahiya (sub-district) consisted of the Muslim quarters of Sheikh Jarrah, Hayy el-Husayni, Wadi el-Joz and Bab ez-Zahira, and the Jewish quarters of Shim'on Hatsadik and Nahalat Shim'on.[15] Its population was counted as 167 Muslim families (est. 1,250 people),[11] 97 Jewish families, and 6 Christian families.[15] It contained the largest concentration of Muslims outside the Old City.[15] Most of the Muslim population was born in Jerusalem, with 185 residents alone being members of the al-Husayni family.[11] A smaller number hailed from other parts of Palestine, namely Hebron, Jabal Nablus and Ramla, and from other parts of the Ottoman Empire, including Damascus, Beirut, Libya and Anatolia.[16] The Jewish population included Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Maghrebim while the Christians were mostly Protestants.[11] In 1918 the Sheikh Jarrah quarter of the Sheikh Jarrah nahiya contained about 30 houses.[9]

Jordanian and Israeli control

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, 14 April, 78 Jews, mostly doctors and nurses, were killed on their way to Hadassah Hospital when their convoy was attacked by Arab forces as it passed through Sheikh Jarrah, the main road to Mount Scopus. In the wake of these hostilities, Mount Scopus was cut off from what would become West Jerusalem.[17] On 24 April the Haganah launched an attack on Sheikh Jarrah as part of Operation Yevusi but they were forced to retreat after action by the British Army.

From 1948, Sheikh Jarrah was on the edge of a UN-patrolled no-man's land between West Jerusalem and the Israeli enclave on Mount Scopus. A wall stretched from Sheikh Jarrah to Mandelbaum Gate, dividing the city.[18] Before 1948, Jews had purchased property in the West Bank and Jordan later passed the Custodian of Enemy Property Law and set a Custodian of Enemy Property to administer the property, amounting to some 30,000 dunums or about 5 percent of the total area of the West Bank.[19] In 1956, the Jordanian government moved 28 Palestinian families into Sheikh Jarrah who were displaced from their homes in Israeli-held Jerusalem during the 1948 War.[20] This was done in accordance with a deal reached between Jordan and UNRWA which stipulated that the refugee status of the families would be renounced in exchange for titles for ownership of the new houses after three years of residency, but the exchange did not take place.[21]

During the Six-Day War of 1967, Israel captured East Jerusalem, including Sheikh Jarrah. While discussing "The Legal and Administrative Matters Law of 1970" in the Knesset in 1968, The Minister of Justice stated that "if the Jordanian Custodian of Enemy Property in East Jerusalem sold a house to someone and received money, this house will not be returned", implying that the deal with UNRWA would be respected.[22]

Under international law, the area, effectively annexed by Israel, is a part of the occupied Palestinian territories.[23][24] Israel applies its laws there[23][24]and the legal proceedings in these and other similar cases in East Jerusalem, are based on the application of two Israeli laws, the Absentee Property Law and the Legal and Administrative Matters Law of 1970.[25]

Jewish groups have sought to gain property in Sheikh Jarrah claiming they were once owned by Jews, including the Shepherd Hotel compound, the Mufti's Vineyard, the building of the el-Ma'amuniya school, the Simeon the Just/Shimon HaTzadik compound, and the Nahlat Shimon neighborhood.

In May 2021, clashes occurred between Palestinians and Israeli police over further anticipated evictions in Sheikh Jarrah.[26][27]

Media related to Sheikh Jarrah at Wikimedia Commons

Coordinates: 31°47′40″N 35°13′55″E ﻿ / ﻿ 31.79444°N 35.23194°E

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Sheikh Jarrah ( Arabic: الشيخ جراح, Hebrew: שייח' ג'ראח) is a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem, two kilometres (1+ 1⁄4 miles) north of the Old City, on the road to Mount Scopus.[1] [2] It received its name from the 13th-century tomb of Sheikh Jarrah, a physician of Saladin, located within its vicinity.

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Maro Makashvili (Georgian: მარო მაყაშვილი; 25 August 1901 – 19 February 1921) was a young Georgian woman who was killed during the 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia. In 2015, she was the first woman to be awarded the Georgian Order of National Hero.[1]

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Maro Makashvili ( Georgian: მარო მაყაშვილი ; 25 August 1901 - 19 February 1921) was a young Georgian woman who was killed during the 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia. In 2015, she was the first woman to be awarded the Georgian Order of National Hero.

Makashvili was born in a family of the Georgian nobility. Her father Konstantine Makashvili was a poet and her maternal grandmother was the writer Ekaterine Gabashvili. Maro Makashvili was a student at the Tbilisi State University when the Red Army launched its invasion of Georgia in February 1921. She volunteered as a nurse and was sent to Kojori along with the Georgian Regiment. She was killed by splinters from a shell two days later.

Immediately after her death Georgian poet Titsian Tabidze compared her to Joan of Arc in a newspaper article. In her honour, Zakaria Paliashvili used the name Maro for the heroine of his opera Daisi, which premiered in 1923. A park located off Gudiashvili street in Tbilisi is named after her.

From age 16 until her death, Makashvili kept a diary that is now part of the collection of the Tbilisi Museum of Literature. It has been published as a book.

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Maro Makashvili ( Georgian: მარო მაყაშვილი ; 25 August 1901 - 19 February 1921) was a young Georgian woman who was killed during the 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia. In 2015, she was the first woman to be awarded the Georgian Order of National Hero.

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Max Reichpietsch was one of the organisators of anti-war movement in Germany at the end of WWI. After many soldiers and marines refused to participate in it after four long years, a revolution took place in Germany. Max Reichpietsch and all the other participants decided to mutiny because they didn’t see a reason (any more) in killing people and because they didn’t want to die for no good reason. Although it was not legal they decided to chose the not yet given right of civil disobedience and war refusal. He was murdered together with other organisators of the rebellion on September 5th in 1917 at the Luftwaffenkaserne Wahn in Cologne, after a war trial found them guilty for leading a revolte. Today this street remembers his name.

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Lekki Toll gate

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On the night of 20 October 2020, at about 6:50p.m., members of the Nigerian Army opened fire on unarmed End SARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos State, Nigeria.[2] Amnesty International stated that at least 12 protesters were killed during the shooting.[3] A day after the incident, on 21 October, the governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-olu, initially denied reports of any loss of lives, but later admitted in an interview with a CNN journalist that "only two persons were killed".[4][5]

The Nigerian Army initially denied involvement in the shooting,[6] but later stated that it had deployed soldiers to the toll gate on the orders of the governor of Lagos State.[7][8] A month after the shooting, following a CNN documentary on the shooting, the Nigerian Army admitted to the Lagos Judiciary panel of inquiry into the shooting that it had deployed its personnel to the toll gate with both live and blank bullets.[9][10]

Previous Nigerian Army crackdowns Edit

The Nigerian Army has been known to open fire and kill unarmed civilians in previous incidents, most notably was the 2015 Zaria massacre[11] and 2018 attack on Shiite Muslims who were protesting against the jailing of a cleric in which 45 Nigerians were killed.[12] Three sons of Sheikh El-Zakzaky were killed alongside about 30 other followers of the Sheikh on July 25, 2014. Since the country's return to civilian rule in 1999, soldiers have killed unarmed civilians in several incidents including: Odi,[13] Zaki Biam,[14] Baga,[15] Zaria,[16] and Abonema.[17] The incident at the Lekki tollgate on October 20, 2020 however runs contrary to the above examples as the testimonies documented in the leaked report of the Judicial panel of inquiry and the subsequent white paper released by the Lagos State government's committee to review the aforementioned report do not support the narrative that a massacre indeed occurred at the Lekki tollgate. Although the panel members relied almost exclusively on testimony provided by an alleged eyewitness to arrive at a conclusion, the expert testimonies by the pathologist and two forensic teams engaged by the panel and the Lagos State government did not however support the summary of the 309-page report.

End SARS is a decentralised social movement and series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria. The slogan calls for the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

In 2016, a human rights activist, Segun Awosanya popularly known as Segalink started EndSARS campaign on social media prompting police authority to announce reform of the police unit but nothing was achieved at the time.[18] In 2018, Nigerian rapper Michael Ugochukwu Stephens, known by his stage name Ruggedman, joined the campaign to end police brutality releasing a single titled, "Is Police Your Friend?"[19]

The protests became more popular in 2017 on Twitter using the hashtag #EndSARS to demand the Nigerian government disband and reform the police unit.[20][21][22]

Within a few days of renewed protests, some claimed victory when, on Sunday, 11 October 2020, the Nigerian Police Force announced it would be dissolving SARS.[23] However, many noted similar promises had been made in recent years, and that the government planned to reassign and review SARS officers to medical centers rather than remove them entirely.[24] The Lekki toll gate shooting promptly ended the protest movement.

On the night of 20 October 2020, Nigerian Armed Forces shot at unarmed protesters at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos, Nigeria.[25]

According to Amnesty International, shortly before the shooting, CCTV cameras were allegedly removed from the toll gate. The Lagos State Government subsequently said these were laser cameras and not CCTV cameras as earlier publicized on social media.[26] Also, the electricity supplying lights to the toll gate was cut and the advertisement billboards, which are owned and maintained by Loatsad Media, were turned off.[3] Loatsad Media stated, "On Tuesday [20 October] when the curfew was announced we heeded the governor's warnings and didn't want our staff in any danger, hence by 3pm, our staff had been ordered to leave the site and the board was switched off based on the governor's curfew request."[27] MTN and Airtel experienced outages during the protests. MTN Nigeria apologized later that night for the loss of coverage at the time of the shooting.[3] On 21 October, the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), released a statement explaining that network downtime experienced during the massacre was a result of damages to fiber cables across major routes in the city resulting in congestion and poor network services.[28] Following a message spread on social media that protesters would be safe if they sang the national anthem and waved the Nigerian flag. Protesters sat down with locked arms singing the Nigerian anthem and waving the Nigerian flag in respite. Twenty armed military personnel approached and from video of the event shows them raising their voices in song as they are shot at by the armed soldiers.[1]

A popular Nigerian DJ, DJ Switch, live-streamed the event on Instagram during and in the aftermath of the shooting. In the video, they attempted to remove a bullet from the leg of a man who was shot, tying a Nigerian flag around his leg.[29][30] Nigerian disc jockey DJ Switch made a livestream video of the shooting on her Instagram account.[31] Though many other eyewitness videos and footages surfaced in the aftermath of the shooting, the livestream would prove to be decisive evidence of the shooting. In a video made on October 23, she clarified that she witnessed the shooting of seven people at the time she was live-streaming on Instagram. She said that armed soldiers and police officers shot at her and other peaceful #EndSARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate on the night of 20 October and that among them were officers of the disbanded SARS unit. She also said that the number of the dead increased to fifteen, but that she did not get a chance to record further, as her phone battery had died. She further said at least 15 people were killed in the shootings and that she and other survivors took the victims' bodies to the soldiers who took them away.[32] She has since left the country for Canada following threats to her life.[33][34]

Lagos-based risk advisory, SBM Intelligence estimated, based on witnesses and emergency services, that at least forty-six people were killed around Nigeria on Tuesday, 20 October according.[35] In the hours after the shooting, People's Gazette, a local newspaper, reported that the army had tried to give nine bodies to the police to help them bury. The police rejected[36] the bodies.

In an independent analysis of the attack, Wall Street Journal investigated various clips from social media and concluded that indeed the massacre took place in Lekki.[37] A detailed report by Nigerian newspaper, Premium Times, established the events that led to the massacre, an attempted cover-up, and abandonment of victims by the Lagos State Government.[38]

In a report on 21 October, Amnesty International stated that at least 12 protesters were killed in what the organization described as "extrajudicial executions".[3] A former marketer with Etisalat Telecommunications Company (now 9Mobile) was reported to be one of the casualties.[39] Denying this, Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, claimed that no one was killed at Lekki and later posted on Twitter that one person died at the hospital as a result of blunt force trauma to the head, and that the connection to the protest was under investigation.[40] The Nigerian military denied responsibility for the shooting, tweeting that media reports were "fake news".[3]

According to witnesses, the military did not allow ambulances to provide aid and removed corpses from the scene of the shooting.[1]

In testimony during April and May 2021 before the Lagos State Judicial Panel, a witness stated that by her reckoning based in part on video evidence at least 10 people died in the shooting. According to Premium Times reporting, the could count five bodies from the videos with many additional injuries.[41]

On the day of the shooting, on 20 October 2020, the government imposed a city-wide round-the-clock curfew in Lagos which was to start at 4p.m. which had only been announced earlier that day around 1p.m. via social media.[42] Protesters defied the curfew although it was later extended till 9p.m. by the Lagos State Governor, staging several demonstrations, and gunfire could be heard throughout the city.[43] Several fires burned throughout Lagos after the shooting.[44] A few hours after the massacre, the Lagos State Governor visited the injured victims in hospitals in Lagos. In a statement on Twitter, he attributed the massacre to "forces beyond our direct control."[45]

The following days after the Lekki massacre witnessed a lot of violence by hoodlums not associated with the #EndSars protest.[46] The looting of shops, burning and destruction of properties of private individuals and government in some parts of Lagos began late in the night of the massacre and spilled into the following morning until military personnel were deployed to the streets of Lagos to restore calm and order.

In a statement made on 22 October 2020, the President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari called for calm and said he would promote police reforms; however, he did not issue a statement or acknowledge the massacre at the Lekki toll gate.[3]

U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden called on the Nigerian government to cease the "violent crackdown on protesters".[25] Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tweeted that Nigerian authorities should "stop killing young #EndSARS protesters".[25]

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet stated[47] that "There is little doubt that this was a case of excessive use of force, resulting in unlawful killings with live ammunition, by Nigerian armed forces".[3] U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that Nigerians' right "to protest peacefully needs to be guaranteed" and that "police brutality needs to stop, and those responsible for acts of such dramatic violence are made accountable".[3]

The violence was strongly condemned by the chairman of the African Union Commission.[44] UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab expressed deep concern and alarm at the reports of civilian deaths, calling for an end to the violence.[40]

Nigerian international footballer Odion Ighalo said he was ashamed of the Nigerian government.[25][48] Members of Nigeria women's national football team, including Ngozi Okobi-Okeoghene, condemned the massacre.[49]

In solidarity and to pay his respect to the "fallen heroes", Nigerian musician Burna Boy released a song titled 20:10:20, marking the day of the Lekki massacre.[50]

On the 21 November 2020, 34 days after the incident, the Nigerian Army admitted after weeks of denial that its servicemen deployed in military vehicles. It also said the soldiers were given live and blank [51] rounds of ammunition, but stopped short of clarifying who gave the order. This statement comes after weeks of denial by the Nigerian Army that its servicemen were never deployed at the Lekki Toll Gate on the night of the masscre.

At least six protesters were beaten and 13 others were arrested at the bridge site on 13 February 2021.[52]

On 26 October, the Lagos State government constituted a Judicial Panel of Inquiry to investigate happenings during the EndSARS protests and to establish who shot protesters, who were affected, how much compensation victims should get, and who should be prosecuted.[53][54] The eight-member panel is headed by Doris Okuwobi, a retired justice. The members of the panel were Retired Deputy Inspector General of Police Fredrick Taiwo Lakanu a lawyer, Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa SAN and Ms. Patience Patrick Udoh both practicing lawyers in Lagos were appointed as representatives of Civil Society. Segun Awosanya (Segalink) one of the initiators of the EndSARS campaign was appointed to the panel representing human rights activists. Mr. Lucas Koyejo was appointed as the representative of the National Human Rights Commission and Mrs Toyin Odunsanya now a Judge of the High Court of Lagos was appointed by Lagos State Government from the Directorate of Citizens Right, Lagos State Ministry of Justice Rinu Oduala and Majekodunmi Temitope are representatives of the youth. [55][56]

Following a call for submission of petitions against police brutality by the panel, several victims sent in damning reports of torture, killings, and other human rights abuses by the police.[57]

During a visit to the scene of the Lekki Toll Gate massacre, the panel found spent bullet shells.[58] The panel was denied access to a military hospital suspected of holding bodies of the victims for over 30 minutes but when the panel eventually gained access into the facility it was found purportedly under renovation and empty.[59]

On 30 November 2020, The Nigerian Army admitted that its soldiers were armed with live ammunition when they opened fire on protesters at the demonstration in Lagos.[60]

The report of the forensic analysis conducted by Sentinel Forensics employed by the panel to examine the evidence submitted by the Nigerian Army, bullet casing discovered by the panel at the scene, and tape of the CCTV at the toll gate showed that the police and the army officers continued firing at protesters even as they were running away.[61] The panel eventually found that nine people were killed.[62]

The Nigerian government rejected the report, with Lai Mohammed attributed media reactions to the shooting as "the triumph of fake news and the intimidation of a silent majority by a vociferous lynch mob".[63]

On November 18, a month after the incident, CNN aired a six-minute documentary on the shooting,[64] the independent investigation showed geolocated photographs of victims and eyewitness accounts, as well as the families of victims, alongside verified trended videos of the shooting using timestamps and data from video files. CNN said that Nigerian authorities refused to comment when they were contacted for clarifications. The documentary also revealed that in collaboration with the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, CNN was able to establish that several of the bullet casings from the Lekki Toll Gate, originated from Serbia from where Nigeria had imported bullets every year between 2005 and 2016. The documentary has given rise to another wave of outrage, this time mostly towards the Nigerian authorities' changing narrative in the face of naked evidence. In its response, the Nigerian Army insists that its members were 'professional in their conduct' and did not breach rules of engagement.[65] Nigeria's Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, accused CNN of 'irresponsible journalism' and described the documentary of the product of fake news and disinformation.[66]

On November 24, as part of its investigations into the shooting, CNN obtained and released CCTV footages from government surveillance cameras overlooking the toll gate presented to the Lagos Judiciary panel of inquiry investigating police brutality, the abuses of the disbanded SARS and the toll gate shooting.[67] The CCTV footage and other footages from the scene at the time showed soldiers shooting at protesters from both ends of the Toll Gate. Corroborating a previous testimony given by the Lekki Concession Company to the panel, the footage stopped at about 8 pm because the CCTV had been tampered with ostensibly to provide cover for the shooting.[68][69] Though yet to provide any counter evidence, Nigerian authorities continue to deny that soldiers shot at protesters.[70][71]

On 9 November 2020, 20 days after the massacre, the disc jockey DJ Switch who gained nationwide fame for her live-stream of the shooting, was granted right of asylum in Canada after multiple threats on her life with is his close friends name Salami Eric adomokhar which is not yes found now[72] Protests have continued accordingly, and the Nigerian state had maintained a pattern of violent repression, including the killing of demonstrators. Unconfirmed reports say that she narrated her ordeal before the Sub-committee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development of the Canadian Parliament.

After the aftermath of End SARS protest, End SARS Activists announced that there would be a memorial to mark the Lekki Shootings. On 19 October 2021, Mr Macaroni and Falz announced that the protest will be carried out by cars in accordance to the message by the Lagos state Police force which prohibited any form of protest. Protest took place mostly in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt among others.

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On the night of 20 October 2020, at about 6:50p.m., members of the Nigerian Army opened fire on unarmed End SARS protesters at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos State, Nigeria.[2] Amnesty International stated that at least 12 protesters were killed during the shooting.[3] A day after the incident, on

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9 აპრილის ბაღი, проспект Шота Руставели, Тбілісі

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The April 9 tragedy (also known as Tbilisi massacre or Tbilisi tragedy) refers to the events in Tbilisi, Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, on April 9, 1989, when an anti-Soviet, pro-independence demonstration was brutally crushed by the Soviet Army, resulting in 21 deaths and hundreds of injuries. April 9 is now remembered as the Day of National Unity (Georgian: ეროვნული ერთიანობის დღე, romanized: erovnuli ertianobis dghe), an annual public holiday.