Homel: Yauhen Yakavenka appeals against forced detention by police

As BelaPAN reports, at noon on 14 January two men in police uniform came up to Yauhen Yakavenka, a regional coordinator of the organizing committee of the Belarusian Christian Democracy, in Knizhnaya Street in Homel. They forced Yakavenka to get in a car and took him to a military enlistment office. ‘They explained me that I allegedly evaded draft, though I didn’t receive any summons to the military office. The office staff didn’t know what to do with me. I was waiting for their chiefs. Then I was told I could go,’ commented the activist.

Yakavenka went to the Savetski district police department and filed a request for punishing the policemen who had detained him. ‘Their actions fall under a criminal article ‘abduction’. ‘They didn’t introduce themselves, didn’t explain anything, but threatened and forced me into a car. Can they be called law enforcement bodies?’ Yakavenka asks.

According to him, officers of the Savetski district police department didn’t want to register the request. ‘Policemen didn’t want to register the request, because it was written in Belarusian, a ‘language they didn’t understand’. Though government officials must know the two official languages, they said they didn’t know Belarusian,’ the activist commented.