On Wednesday evening, as thousands more protesters poured in, opposition leaders announced a twenty-four hour deadline for the government to announced emergency elections. If their deadline is not met then they have promised that they will attack.
Nearly two thousand protesters, two hundred police officers, and thirty-six journalists have been injured since Sunday, when the protests turned violent after parliament passed a heavily controversial law, on Friday. Under the bill, any protest can be banned, freedom of speech is limited, freedom of the press is cut, the government is allowed to ban citizens from using the internet, and it classifies advocacy groups as "foreign agents" if they receive money from abroad.
Opposition leaders accused Yanukovych of trying to cement a dictatorship by following the ways of Russia and North Korea. News of the bills passing was met with condemnation from much of the world, especially the European Union.
Continuous protests have been taking place in Kiev, and elsewhere in Ukraine, for several months now, with crowds as large as two hundred thousand, in Kiev's Independence Square alone. Many Ukrainians worry that Yanukovych is taking their country back under Russian influence and fear a loss of their independence from their former Soviet masters.
The protests gained steam after three former presidents backed them. Police were unable to clear out the protesters in December, and their failure had been followed by Yanukovych promising to get back to working on the deal with the EU.
However, his once again breaking his word only heightened the calls for his removal from office and led to many to call him a traitor and warn that he should never return to the country. The opposition had called for the government to replace him, but their lack of movement on the issue has led to calls for their removal as well.
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