Human rights defender Raman Yurhel lost his job

On 23 June Raman Yurhel, representative of the republican human rights NGOs Belarusian Helsinki Committee in Hrodna oblast, was dismissed from the position of watchman at Hrodnaselbudprayekt on grounds of redundancy. The administration of the enterprise warned him about it a month before it.

However, the activist thinks his rights have been violated.

The official reason for firing Yurhel is that he is ill with bronchial asthma and therefore could not conduct his working duties properly. Another reason was that he had received an administrative punishment for organization of unauthorized pickets.

 ‘I was made to understand that I won’t receive a job because I have a record of conviction. In fact, at present I don’t have any, as I was brought to administrative responsibility which is lifted within a year. I got a fine 160 basic units, or 4.080.000 Belarusian rubles for organizing and holding an unauthorized event some years ago. I know that places of the quitted people were taken by former officers of the KGB, Ministry of Internal Affairs and other people,’ the human rights activist told Radio Racyja.

In accordance with the restructuring, more than 50 people at Hrodnaselbudprayekt faced redundancy: some of them were laid off, some had to transfer to the main economic board on worse conditions.