After weeks of increasingly violent protests Justice Minister Elena Lukash said in a statement online "a political decision was made on scrapping the laws of Jan. 16, which aroused much discussion," the Associated Press reported.
After opposition leaders met with President Viktor Yanukovych on Monday night, Yanukovych offered to remove the law which initially sparked peaceful protests to become more confrontational, according to the AP.
The clashes with riot police and demonstrators began to escalate three days after Yanukovych pushed the law through parliament, further angering protesters who called for his resignation, the AP reported.
After the Monday night meeting, Yanukovych also stated he would release the arrested protesters only if the remaining protesters in Independence Square and other official government buildings would remove themselves, according to the AP.
During a televised statement, Lukash said one of the buildings which had been seized by protesters contained justice employees who has been working towards changes in the constitution to give more power to the Prime mInister and a measure to give amnesty to jailed protesters, the AP reported.
The anti-protester law will be officially eliminated during a parliament session on Tuesday in hopes protesters will see Yanukovych as being open to negotiations with them, according to the AP. The elimination of the law is only one of the protesters demands, another is for Yanukovych to resign.
Yanukovych offered opposition leaders like Arseniy Yatsenyuk high-power positions like Prime Ministers, but both leaders turned down his offer on Saturday and called for protests to continue, the AP reported.
Demonstrators believed the government would take forceful measures to disperse them from the square and other locations after Yanukovych passed the anti-protester law, according to the AP.
Catherine Ashton, the European foreign policy chief, said a state of emergency by the government "would trigger a further downward spiral for Ukraine which would benefit no one," the AP reported.
The Ukrainian government announced they have no intention of announcing a state of emergency and Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara told journalists "Today, such a measure is not on the table," according to the AP.
As of Monday, protesters were still occupying Independence Square and three other government buildings in downtown Kiev, including City Hall, the AP reported.
Though the elimination of the anti-protest law will be carried out in Tuesday's parliamentary session, it has not been announced whether the constitutional changes giving more power to Lukash would also be implemented on Tuesday, according to the AP.
