Ukrainian Communists outraged by Rada majority’s decision to expel faction from session hall

 It was reported earlier that a majority of the Verkhovna Rada deputies voted for expelling the Communist deputies from the session hall “for a separatist declaration” at a session behind closed doors on Tuesday, at which the deputies listened to reports from the law enforcement and security chiefs. After that, the Party of Regions deputies also left the session hall in solidarity with the Communists.

Symonenko said the Communist Party had demanded that the parliamentary session be open to the public, but the demand had been ignored.

“We demanded that there should be an open conversation at the parliament regarding the grounds on which peaceful people wishing Russian to be the second official language and a referendum were shot. But, amid everything that is going on now, they [the parliamentarians] tried to gag the Communist Party faction’s mouth and decided to remove it from the hall,” he added.

Symonenko pointed out that such a decision was made for the first time in independent Ukraine’s history.

The Communist Party faction contented in a statement published on its website that the decision to expel an entire faction from a Verkhovna Rada session held behind closed doors is unprecedented and unlawful.

“After faction leader Petro Symonenko justly demanded that the Verkhovna Rada session be held openly so that the Ukrainian people could hear firsthand who is killing peaceful civilians in the Donetsk, Luhansk and other regions and burning people alive in Odessa and why, the pro-fascist majority, contrary to the Ukrainian law on the parliamentary rules of procedure, decided to expel the Communist parliamentarians from the plenary session hall,” the statement says.

“Those who voted today for the Communist faction’s illegitimate expulsion from the Verkhovna Rada plenary session hall allegedly for separatism, are the true separatists, tearing the country into oligarchic fiefdoms and depriving Ukraine of its political sovereignty and independence,” he said.