In April 2004, president Leonid Kuchma ordered the Cabinet of Ministers to create a single Sumy National University on the basis of three other universities: Sumy State University, Sumy State Pedagogical University, and Sumy National Agrarian University. The prime minister and Kuchma-endorsed presidential candidate Viktor Yanukovych signed the order on June 17, 2004. On June 28, 2004, 1000 students, along with their parents and professors began a protest against the government's decision to unite the three universities, and decided to march in protest to the city of Kyiv. The students were detained and beaten in a “mass punitive operation” by the government and the police.

The walk to Kyiv was prohibited by the ruling of a Romny, Sumy Oblast, local court. The court decided that a public walk of students alongside the road from Sumy to Kyiv through Romny is a violation of public safety. According to eyewitnesses, 150 to 200 of police officers took part in detaining 40 students from the city of Sumy. They came along in five buses and 10 police cars. The police did not show IDs and did not introduce themselves as police. The police officers have beaten the students with plastic batons, providing no explanation.

Aleksandra Vesnich, the speaker for the student resistance drive, informed that the police arrested the Member of Ukraine's Parliament Vyacheslav Kyrylenko along with the students. Vesnich informed that those detained are at a police department in Romny, Sumy Oblast. The police has also detained a bus with 20students from Lviv that came along to show solidarity with the Sumy students. According to Nasha Ukraina Aliance, MP Kyrylenko was released in a few hours, while 15 students remained in the police department.

MP Kyrylenko said: "That was a big punitive operation using at least 150 officers that came in several buses and ten to fifteen police cars … I believe that the decision to punish students was taken in Kyiv. I do not believe local authorities could punish their own neighbours so harshly and wildly, at own will. Looks like the presidential candidate [and Ukraine's PM] Viktor Yanukovych is directly responsible for that decision; and that the Sumy governor made orders to the police. The special operation was targeted at the right of an individual to express his or her opinion.”

Among those arrested, there was also a Kyiv-based journalist, a political observer from a business information agency, Context ( http://www.context.org.ua), Yevhen Kuzmenko. He did not take part in students' action but rather performed his professional duties observing the scene. However, he and his driver were arrested and delivered to Romny's traffic patrol police department. Kuzmenko was released but vowed to demand explanations from the police.

The Romny police department informed that they would not comment on the events.

About 30 students continue marching on Kyiv. They move along forests. They are hunted by police officers.

Today at 3 p.m., several pickets, including in Sumy and Kyiv, are planned.

-- original source: alter-ee mailing list. for additional information:  http://www.ukranews.com,  http://www.liga.net,  http://www.obkom.net.ua,  http://www.glavred.info,  http://imi.org.ua,  http://www.context.org.ua