* Vote on contested law tabled at last minute
* Opponents fear it will harm sovereignty, boost Russia ties
* Protesters scuffle with police in Kiev
(Adds later developments)
KIEV, July 3 (Reuters) – Ukraine’s parliament on Tuesday
rushed through a contentious draft law upgrading the status of
the Russian language, sparking scuffles between pro-government
and opposition deputies who fear it will boost the country’s
ties to Russia.
The chamber approved the bill in a second and final reading
minutes after a surprise proposal by one of the majority party
leaders, giving opponents little time to cast their vote.
“Every (procedure) that could be violated has been
violated,” Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the leader of the largest
opposition bloc, told reporters after the vote.
Opposition MPs tried and failed to physically stop the
speaker from calling the vote, provoking scuffles with members
of the ruling party. When that failed, they walked out in
protest.
Later on Tuesday, opposition leaders and hundreds of their
supporters briefly scuffled with police when they gathered near
a building where President Viktor Yanukovich was due to hold a
press briefing on Wednesday morning.
“Police… have used teargas against citizens and
parliament deputies,” opposition party Batkivshchyna said
in a statement, adding that the protesters planned to stay near
the building in central Kiev overnight.
The Kiev police department was quoted by the Interfax news
agency as saying that teargas had been used by unidentified
people against policemen. Police withdrew after protesters
agreed not to set up a tent camp, it said.
Language policy is an emotive subject in the former Soviet
republic of 45 million people whose state language is Ukrainian,
but where a significant number of people speak Russian as their
mother tongue.
If signed into law by President Viktor Yanukovich – the last
stage in the approval process – the bill would recognise Russian
as a “regional” language in predominantly Russian-speaking areas
such as Yanukovich’s home region of Donetsk, enabling its use in
the public service.
Supporters of the bill, drafted by members of President
Yanukovich’s Party of the Regions, argue it will make life
easier for Ukraine’s large Russian-speaking population, allowing
their children to receive schooling in their mother tongue.
Opponents regard the use of Ukrainian as a potent symbol of
sovereignty, however, and say official recognition of the
Russian language will keep Ukraine in Moscow’s sphere of
influence while diluting the country’s national identity.
They say the bill was pushed through in order to win back
disenchanted voters in the government’s Russian-speaking power
base in eastern Ukraine ahead of a parliamentary election in
October.
Yanukovich can now either sign it into law or veto it, a
move that would win him some support in western Ukraine where
the majority of voters speak Ukrainian.
“Yanukovich will sign the bill, he will act in the interests
of his party and the bill serves the interests of the Regions in
the run-up to the elections,” Volodymyr Fesenko, a political
analyst, predicted.
Russia – where the authorities complain that the language
rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine are being violated – would
welcome the law.
Ukrainian was banned in schools and printing presses in
parts of Ukraine that were under Russian rule in the 19th
century. Russian was also the preferred medium of communications
for much of the Soviet era when Ukraine was ruled from Moscow.
(Reporting by Olzhas Auyezov and Pavel Polityuk; Editing by
Richard Balmforth and Michael Roddy)
