Detention of political activists on the eve of Victory Day Parade

Two Young Front activists were detained when they left the BPF office to buy water.

BelaPAN learnt this from Anastasiya Palazhanka, a participant of the hunger-strike and deputy head of the Young Front organization.

According to her, two participants of the action, carried out by Young Front at the BPF headquarters, Yauhen Skrabets and Illia Nahorny, left the office on 9 May to buy some water. ‘They were detained by the police and guarded to Tsentralny district police department of Minsk,’ Palazhanka said.

Skrabets and Nahorny spent three hours at the police department. ‘The policemen didn’t draw up any reports, didn’t explain the reason of the detention, even didn’t prove their identity for they allegedly knew whom to detain. The activists were kept at the police department till the rally of war veterans ended in Minsk center, and then were released.

On 9 May, the leader of the United Civil Party Anatol Liabedzka and five members of the UCP youth organization Young Democrats brought flowers to Peramohi Square in Minsk to pay tribute to memory of the fallen during the World War II.

‘But as we tired to go through a cordon of militiamen and people in mufti, responsible for security of the event, we were taken aside and encircled. Some people in mufti said they were officers of the president’s security service and said our presence at the event was undesirable,’ Liabedzka told BelaPAN.