Clear-up before ‘Slavonic Bazaar’: Kavalenka brothers detained in Vitsebsk

Siarhei Kavalenka, activist of the Conservative-Christian Party Belarusian Popular Front was detained in the evening of 8 July. According to his mother, Lidziya Kavalenka, it happened at about 9 p.m. near his house.

She doesn’t rule out that he can be charged with using obscene language towards the police. The detainee’s whereabouts are still unknown. Most probably, he was placed to the pre-trial prison.

The woman also said that his brother, Vital Kavalenka, would be tried today for the alleged use of obscene language. Lidziya believes that in such a away the authorities want to isolate the activists during the Slavonic Bazaar festival in Vitsebsk.

Siarhei Kavalenka has been repeatedly detained in 2010 for the organization of different civil actions. In May 2010, he was sentenced to three years of deferred imprisonment for hanging out a white-red-white flag on the main New Year Tree of Vitsebsk on 7 January, which was qualified as ‘purposeful actions that violated the public order and demonstrated an open disrespect for the society’.