Brok: Yanukovych not listening to the Ukrainian people

Following a mission by the European Parliament to Kiev, the leader of the delegation and Chairman of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Elmar Brok MEP, said:

"I am greatly concerned by the current situation in the Ukraine. With the unilateral adoption of a controversial amnesty law, President Yanukovych has shown that he has little intention of listening to the demands of his people and to work constructively with the democratic opposition on the resolution of the crisis, including constitutional reform and the electoral law. The spiral of violence must be stopped and the authorities must create the conditions for this.

I fail to understand why the people who have been unfairly arrested or brutally beaten and those whose relatives have disappeared should need an amnesty law to see justice finally re-established.

These people have seen their fundamental rights trampled because of undemocratic laws adopted in an undemocratic fashion. These laws have now finally been repealed in the face of massive popular protest and international outcry. On what grounds are their victims still being kept in custody and the perpetrators of violence allowed to go unpunished? Why do we need an amnesty law for this, a law which sets unfair conditions and mixes up victims and perpetrators?

President Yanukovych should listen to his people and engage in a serious, unconditional and unambiguous dialogue with the opposition. What is happening in the Ukraine is inconsistent with repeated statements by the government that the Ukraine remains committed to its European ambitions. Violence and intimidation are not worthy of a democratic state and if they continue, we should respond with targeted sanctions against those who carry the responsibility, directly and indirectly, for them."