Hrodna region: authorities continue haunting participants of insurgents' commemoration
The police continue looking for participants of the commemorative action in honor of the anti-Russian insurgents
of 1863-1864, held on 27 October 2012 in the Svislach district.
It's
worth reminding that three of the action participants were detained
and sentenced to arrest for the use of national symbols. Four people
were sentenced to fines.
Several days ago, on 4 December,
charges were also presented to the head of the Hrodna city branch of
the Belarusian Popular Front party Vadzim Saranchukou and a member of
its council Iryna Danilouskaya. Most probably, soon the both of them
will be tried at the Svislach District Court.
“The
Belarusian civil society is going to celebrate the 150th anniversary
of the beginning of the national uprising in 2013. Most probably, the
authorities want to prevent a massive celebration. The events around
the Insurgents' Day in Sviaslach are legally absurd: according to the
logic of the authorities, citizens have no right to come an lay
flowers to monuments. It is an absolutely lawless adverse
discrimination. The situation looks even worse in the moral and
political dimension – in 1863 the Belarusian territory was under
the Russian occupation, whereas now we have a formally independent
Republic of Belarus, in which the titular nation, Belarusian, is most
persecuted,” commented a human rights defender Viktar Sazonau.