Police Refuse to Bring Criminal Case on Threats to Khamaida by Russian Neo-Nazis

Pershamaiski district police department of Vitsebsk refuses to bring a criminal case on the fact of mailing threats and anti-Semitic leaflets by unknown persons to the activist of the Conservative-Christian Party Belarusian People’s Front (CCP BPF) Barys Khamaida. 

In his interview to the BelaPAN Khamaida said that on 8 January, his 60th birthday, he received a leaflet and a letter signed by ‘Vitebsk branch of the Russkoye Natsionalnoye Edinstvo (Russian National Unity). At first Khamaida decided to ignore the letter. He said that he has not applied to the state organs since 1996. He believes that since the adoption of the Constitution 1996 the laws do not work in the country.

‘Only because of the insistence of my friends did I write to Vitsebsk oblast prosecutor Henadz Dysko and attached to my address the RNE letter and leaflet. However, the prosecutor passed by address to the prosecutor of Pershamaiski district of Vitsebsk Vasil Yahorau. Then it got to the chair of Pershamaiski district police department of Vitsebsk Siarhei Mihaliou, who entrusted the local police inspector Aliaksandr Katulski with preparing an answer,’ Khamaida said.

A.Katulski motivated the refusal to bring a criminal case with the absence of a corpus delicti punishable under the Criminal Code. Instead, Katulski qualified the mail threats as violation of article 9.3 and 17.1 of the Administrative Code (petty hooliganism and insult respectively).

B.Khamaida, in his turn, believes that policemen and workers of the procuracies were to have brought a criminal case under article 130 of the Criminal Code (fomenting racial, national or religious enmity or discord), because the letter and leaflets received by him contain the formal corpus delicti.

According to Khamaida, in the beginning of March he was also summonsed to Vitsebsk oblast KGB office in connection with holding a check-up on the order of the Prosecutor General’s office connected to the complaint of the chairman of the Union of the Belarusian Jewish public associations and communities Leanid Lepin concerning the RNE actions in Vitsebsk.

Bear in mind that in 2007-2008 letters with threats from RNE were received by Vitsebsk activists of the CCP BPF, the editorial office of the non-state newspaper Vitebskiy kurier, the activists of Vitsebsk city office of the United Civil Party Alena Zaleskaya and the head of the literary department of the Belarusian theater Lialka Viktoryia Dashkevich. To their addresses to the police and the procuracies they received answers that RNE was not registered in Belarus.

On 1 November 2007 in Vitsebsk two unknown persons beat 18-year-old student Aliaksandr Dziarzhautsau, son of the activist of Vitsebsk CCP BPF branch Yan Dziarzhautsau, who had received a threat letter from RNE before the incident.