Brest: Police Detain 16 Activists of Milinkevich’s Electoral Headquarters

In the morning of 14 March in Brest near the office of the newspaper Brestski kuryer the police stopped for allegedly wrong parking and detained for resistance to the police the chair of Brest branch of the United Civil Party and the proxy of the candidate to the presidential position Aliaksandr Milinkevich Stsiapan Navaselchan. According to Mr Navaselchan, in that place people started parking in a wrong way long ago, but the police has never detained drivers for it. The most interesting thing is that the car of Milinkevich’s proxy was parked correctly, which is witnessed by photos. Stsiapan Navaselchan refused to go to a police station on his free will. After this he was seized and taken to Brest Leninski Borough Board of Internal Affairs.

At 3 p.m. he was tried and sentenced to 10 days of jail for disobedience to the police orders and petty hooliganism.

At 12.40 a.m. at the crossing of Masherau Av. and Kasmanautau Alley in Brest an unknown man in plain clothes came up to the agitation stands of Aliaksandr Milinkevich and started to draw with a marker on them. Then he overturned the stand, started to trample it and tear the agitation materials out of the agitators’ hands. The agitators Kanstantsin Turchaniak and Andrei Vasilevich called to the police, but there were no police patrols near, despite the fact that usually the center of the city is patrolled by several patrols. They occasionally met a policeman who detained the man. The agitators also went to the police station and spent there 1,5 hours. However, they were informed neither about the man’s name and surname, nor about the reasons why he was detained.

K.Turchaniak and A.Vasilevich don’t rule out it could be a provocation. It is confirmed by the fact that after the policeman appeared, several BRSM members came up and said the agitators beat the man, but passers-by disproved this.

At 2 p.m. at the opposite side of the crossing the police detained two other activists of the electoral headquarters, Ihar Dzemidovich and Andrei Sharenda for agitation in the wrong place. According to the activists, the police were called by the procurator of Brest city, who was driving by. At first the police proposed the guys to go away, which they tried to do. However, soon they were approached by the same policemen, who detained them. I.Dzemidovich and A.Sharenda were kept at Brest Leninski Borough Board of Internal Affairs for about 50 minutes. The police composed on them a violation report despite the fact that by its written decision Brest City Executive Committee who specified the places for agitation. Brest CEC had permitted agitation in the place where the activists were detained. Andrei Sharenda was also summonsed to the chair of Brest Leninski BBIA who threatened he would get him excluded from the university. Finally, the policemen said they won’t pass the violation report to the court, but will direct it to the Central Election Commission instead.

The 6 p.m. the chair of Brest city electoral headquarters of Aliaksandr Milinkevich Dzmitry Shymanski was detained right in the headquarters on suspicion in ‘organization of unauthorized meeting’ and taken to Brest Maskouski BBIA. When the police appeared in the headquarters there were about 15 persons, the majority of who were members of the initiative group of Aliaksandr Milinkevich. They were invited there by the member of the initiative group Alena Dzemidziuk for receiving the officially registered agitation production. The police put down the passport data of the present people and prohibited them to go out. Some of them were made to write explanations, which was videoed by the police. All others were visited by the police in the evening and also had to give explanations. The policemen asked what was discussed at the ‘unauthorized assembly’.

Mr Shymanski was left in Brest Regional Board of Internal Affairs for night, despite the fact that he has a little child and promised to come to the court in the morning. Dzmitry Shymanski doesn’t agree to the accusations of organization of unauthorized assembly and considers the police actions plainly lawless. On 15 March he was sentenced to 10 days of jail.

At 7 p.m. the secretary of Brest city headquarters of Aliaksandr Milinkevich Uladzimir Tarnouski received a telephone call from the secretary of the regional headquarters Ryhor Bakievich, who said he was attacked by an unknown drunk person on the street, and then taken to Brest Leninski Borough Board of Internal Affairs. According to the information of the human rights activist Uladzimir Vialichkin R.Bakieu was accused of hooliganism.