Paramilitaries burn down house of Ukrainian Communist Party leader

World February 25, 2014, 4:41

So-called fighters of Maidan’s self-defense broke into his house

KIEV, February 25. ITAR-TASS/ A house belonging to the leader of Ukraine’s Communist Party Pyotr Simonenko was burned down by a group of paramilitaries Monday, the press service of the Communist Party said.

The house was located in the village of Gorenka in the Kiev region. Itar-Tass failed to get comments on the incident from the Interior Ministry.

“A group of paramilitaries, who introduced themselves at the fighters of Maidan’s self-defense, broke into a house which they believed belonged to the Communists’ leader Pyotr Simonenko,” the press service said. “Reporters were not allowed to enter the house and the CCTV servers were destroyed.”

When the assaulters failed to find anything precious or valuable that might compromise the owner of the house, they drove up a big consignment of Molotov cocktails on three cars to the house and set fire to it. The three cars were an Audi, a Mercedes-Benz and a Chevrolet.

Simonenko said in an interview with Itar-Tass Monday all the attempts to remove his party from the political scene would be futile.

“They won’t intimidate us and that statement (on banning the Communist Party - Itar-Tass) proves once again that they don’t want to hear other people’s viewpoints and don’t want to understand Ukraine’s diversity,” he said

He recalled the previous attempts to ban his party.

“The Communists have a clear-cut program and that’s why they are trying to eliminate it from the political arena the party and its principled stance but their attempts will flop,” Simonenko said.

Independent MP Oleg Lyashkov told fellow-MPs earlier that he was initiating a legal ban on the Party of Regions, which supports President Viktor Yanukovich, and the Communist Party.

Lyashko told a session of the Rada’s conciliatory council that the Regions Party “and their Communist partners” had the full brunt of responsibility for the current situation in the country.

Parliament speaker Alexander Turchinov cooled Lyashko’s rage down, saying: “This country has a Constitution and a law on political parties and we as a democratic state should act in accordance with legislation.

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