DONETSK, September 23 (RIA Novosti) – Protesters in southeastern Ukraine who reportedly burned the US and Israeli national flags in a demonstration against foreign intervention in Syria face up to four years in prison for hooliganism, local police said Monday.
Protestors at the rally, in downtown Mariupol on Saturday, waved “foreign” flags defaced with swear words, police said, adding that some protesters poured gasoline on flags and burned them. Media reports identified the flags as being US and Israeli.
The rally, attended by about 70 people, was organized by the nationalist Union of Slavs and authorized by city authorities, local news site NBNews reported.
An organizer of the event claimed that the protesters’ actions were lawful. “If you have any complaints, then file a lawsuit,” NBNews quoted him as saying.
Washington has said the Syrian government, which has been battling a domestic insurgency for more than two years, killed civilians outside Damascus with poison gas on August 21, and has threatened airstrikes against government targets in retaliation.
After days of intense negotiations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his US counterpart, John Kerry, announced in mid-September an ambitious plan under which the Syrian government’s entire chemical arsenal would be placed under international control by November and destroyed by mid-2014.
The United States has not ruled out military strikes against Syria if Damascus does not abide by the US-Russian plan to hand over its chemical arsenal.
