Marathon in memory of Stalin repression victims starts with detentions

Today, on the Day of Remembrance of the victims of totalitarian repression, police detained participants of a mourning marathon and journalists, Radio Liberty’s Belarus service reports.

Police detained 23 people who took part in the commemoration of the victims of Stalinism.

Among those detained are civil society activists Aliaksei Shein, Uladzimir Ramanouski, Hanna Shaputska, Aliaksandr Makayeu, Siarhei Hanzhankou, Katsiaryna Sadouskaya, Nina Bahinskaya, Illia Dabratvor and 5 journalists. The police stopped them after they laid flowers on the graves of the victims of Stalin's repressions in Calvary Cemetery.

Later it became known that there was a child among the detainees. There was also a representative of an international human rights organization, whose name is yet unknown. According to the press service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the detained journalists were Natallia Valakida, Siarhei Krauchuk, Natallia Kastsiukevich, Dzianis Nosau and Aliaksandr Korsakau.

The journalists, the human rights defender and the participants were eventually released without charges.

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In the night from 29 to 30 October 1937, more than 100 Belarusian intellectuals – writers, scientists and public figures – were shot in the dungeons of NKVD’s Minsk inner prison.