Kiev protesters conclude occupation of City Hall_美文

Kiev protesters conclude occupation of City Hall

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Scores of Ukrainian anti-government protesters ended a 2-month-old occupation of City Hall in the capital, Kiev, on Sunday to meet a government amnesty offer.

Demonstrators had swept into the main municipal building in early December to protest Ukranian President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to abandon a trade pact with the European Union.

Under an amnesty arrangement aimed at defusing the crisis, Ukrainian authorities have offered to drop all criminal charges against activists who have been provisionally freed as long as municipal buildings are cleared of protesters and some main roads are unblocked by Monday.

Masked men in military fatigues and the demonstrators they had protected against riot police since mid-December filed out of Kiev's City Hall on Sunday, but they threatened to return if authorities did not carry out the amnesty promise.

Opposition deputies said protesters had similarly pulled out of municipal buildings in several areas of western Ukraine, a hotbed of opposition to Yanukovych, and in one part of the southeast where the president has retained more support.

"We are doing all we can so that the amnesty law will be able to enter into force. There was a decision made to free the building of the Kiev Council (City Hall), and we are doing that. There will not be a single protester left there," said Oleh Helevey, a deputy for the far-right nationalist party Svoboda.