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The Speaker of the National Legislative Assembly began a violent and deadly crackdown today after days of massive and peaceful demonstrations in cities around the country over the killing of thousands of unarmed minority civilians, often at the hands of militarized-police forces. The killing of thousands of unarmed minority civilians lead to mass protests against police brutality and often advocated for the removal of Yulia Tymoshenko, who has been silent on this issue. BREAKING NEWS: Moments ago, its reported that the military has used chemical weapons in response to mass demonstrations, killing an estimated 20,000 people.

In response to these protest and in a surprise move, the Speaker convened the legislature into a special session and enacted the "Telecommunication Privacy Protection Act" with only 1 vote, yet 224 assembly-members weren’t in their seats when the vote took place. That power emanates from the little-known legislative rules that Ukraine's National Legislative Assembly Speaker Yulia Tymoshenko – uses on an everyday basis to orchestrate the legislative and political outcomes she wants. This sweeping legislation, containing articles authorizing the death penalty, will be used to restrict freedom of speech and expression. Article 3(c) of the Telecommunication Privacy Protection Act states that if anyone, "advocates, abets, advises, incites and/or otherwise prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability to subvert the political power of the Speaker of the National Legislative Assembly shall, on arrest, be liable to imprisonment for mandatory term of twelve (12) years or upon conviction, receive the death penalty."

So for now, New World Union remains in a crises. For years, it's tried to keep the region democratic but Ukraine, once the region's most promising new addition, is now threatening to unravel the whole thing.