Minsk: Tatsiana Dziadok Refuses to Repent before Administration of Higher School of Tourism and Police Detain Her Supporters

Source: www.charter97.org

A student of the Higher School of Tourism of the Belarusian State Economic University Tatsiana Dziadok hasn’t asked forgiveness for participation in the protest action against the rigged results of the presidential election, and her fellow students refused to condemn her publicly, as the dean’s office demanded. The administration of the Higher School of Tourism was nervous of representatives of the press and people who have gathered by the building of the university to support Tatsiana Dziadok. At the meeting the administration has not repeated the treats to expel the student from the university.

However, at the meeting the dean Mikalay Kabushkin continued to maintain that by taking part in the protest on Kastrychnitskaia Square Tatsiana Dziadok allegedly ‘brought into disgrace the university’ and ‘inflicted shame on its honourable name’. Fellow students of Tatsiana Dziadok refused to condemn her for participation in the protest. Moreover, several persons openly, in the presence of the dean, stated that they fully support Tatsyana.

In the end of the meeting the students’ group request the dean to minimize punishment for Tatsyana. Still it is strange to speak of a punishment as Tatsyana, like hundreds of other young people, had been illegally arrested, and then served a sentence for participation in a peaceful protest rally.

On 19 April About 80 students of different universities of Minsk gathered to support Tatsiana Dziadok. Before the meeting of the administration special task police has blocked the ways to the building of the educational institution. They were not allowing students come up to the entrance. That is why people went to the crossing of Sverdlov and Karl Marx streets. They presented to Tatsiana Dziadok flowers, said words of support and wished her success in the conversation with the administration of the educational institution.

At about 9 a.m. the student entered the educational building, and the young people moved to Mikhailauski Park. They were standing there until the end of the meeting, holding in their hands little blue flags with the icon of Our Lady of Minsk (the official emblem of Minsk). 11 participants of the action were detained by the police and driven to Minsk Leninski Borough Board of Internal Affairs. There the police put down the passport data of the detainees and videotaped one of the detainees. Then the people were released.