Attack on reporter reignites protests in Ukraine

PanARMENIAN.Net - Protesters demanded Ukraine's interior minister resign on Thursday, Dec 26 after an opposition journalist known for documenting the extravagance of the country's political elite was chased down in her car and savagely beaten in a midnight attack, Reuters reported.

Clutching pictures of Tetyana Chornovil's badly bruised face, hundreds marched on the Interior Ministry in the capital, Kiev.

The attack on the 34-year-old restored passion to protests that have been losing steam more than a month after the government spurned a pact on closer ties with the European Union, turning instead to Moscow.

Pro-EU demonstrators have been occupying central Kiev, but their numbers have been falling since Russia offered Ukraine a $15 billion bailout this month.

The United States said the journalist's beating was "particularly disturbing" and that Washington was concerned and watching the situation.

Ukraine's interior minister, Vitaly Zakharchenko, had already become a target of opposition anger following a violent crackdown on protesters by police late last month that helped swell the demonstrations.

The attack on Chornovil, shortly after midnight on Wednesday, came hours after she posted pictures online of what she said was Zakharchenko's home, part of a campaign to expose the opulence of the political elite under President Viktor Yanukovich.

With Ukraine winding down for the Orthodox Christian holiday season, the opposition movement has shown signs of waning. A hard core of hundreds continue to camp out around braziers on Kiev's Independence Square, swelled by weekly mass rallies of around 100,000 or more.