Homel police reluctant to catch those who attack opposition pickets

The electoral picket of the potential candidate Uladzimir Niakliayeu near the Homel supermarket was attacked by an unknown person who insulted the picketers and tried to provoke a fight. A police station is in five-minute walk from the place of the picket.

‘We were collecting signatures under a white-red-white flag, when we were approached by a youngster who started clinging to us saying that we were speaking an ‘abnormal language’, climbed up on our desk, shouted, insulted us and shot us on a video camera’, said the member of the electoral team of Uladizmir Niakliayeu Kanstantsin Zhukouski.

The picketers phoned to the police, who came to the place only in 20 minutes and refused to accept an application about the violation of the public order, saying they had no powers to do it. ‘Our complaint was accepted by a policeman only in 1,5 hours, but the offender had been gone a long time before it’ said the activist.

The members of the electoral team believe that it was a planned provocation that was aimed at impeding the collection of signatures in support of Niakliayeu’s candidacy and provoking a fight.

There seems to be some agreement between them, as the youngster behaved very boldly. He must have been sure that the police won’t come to our aid. Though we have videoed the offender, the police would probably give us a standard answer that it was impossible to find and punish the person who violated the public order,’ commented Mr. Zhukouski.

Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections