Civil Liberties

Reports of Police Brutality in Kiev Fuel Anger

Video clips posted of officers attacking protesters

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As my colleague David Herszenhorn reports from Kiev, thousands of opposition protesters demanding the resignation of the Ukrainian government continued to occupy Independence Square in the capital on Monday, two days after images of the police battering demonstrators there backfired on the authorities, swelling the street protests.

One video clip of riot police officers attacking protesters before dawn on Saturday, posted on YouTube by the Afghan-Ukrainian journalist Mustafa Nayyem, was viewed more than 780,000 times within 48 hours. Similar footage broadcast by Ukraine's Channel 5 and shared widely on social networks showed images of bloodied protesters.