Many demonstrators wore pots and colanders on their heads while others sported ski, medical and carnival masks to mock the new legislation which forbids protesters from covering their faces.
Waving blue and yellow national flags and the red and black banners of the war-time Ukrainian Insurgent Army and chanting “Glory to Ukraine,” protesters filled Kiev’s Independence Square and surrounding streets to bursting point.
“We declare the legislation adopted on Thursday illegal,” Vitali Klitschko, former world boxing champion and one of the opposition leaders, told the crowds.
Yanukovych, 63, who has been wrestling with two months of opposition protests, on Friday signed into law tough legislation that bans virtually all forms of protests in a move the opposition called a power grab and the West said was anti-democratic.
The new laws allow the authorities to jail those who blockade public buildings for up to five years and permit the arrest of protesters who wear masks or helmets.
Other provisions ban the dissemination of “slander” on the Internet and introduce the term “foreign agent” to be applied to non-governmental groups that receive foreign funding.
“Parliament has lost its legitimacy, which means we should create a people’s council consisting of opposition politicians,” opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk told the rally.
The protest curbs are expected to breathe new life into the demos against Yanukovych, whose decision to ditch a key pact with the EU in November last year in favor of closer ties with Moscow sparked the largest rallies since Ukraine’s 2004 pro-democracy Orange Revolution.
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