Police seize leaflets "Freedom for Political Prisoners!" at election picket in Minsk

Police seized about 200 election leaflets from a BPF candidate, Illia Dabratvor, who staged yesterday a picket in front of Minsk’s Kamarouski market. The special attention to the campaign materials was caused by information about Belarusian political prisoners and the slogan "Freedom for Political Prisoners!"

"The results of the picket are generally positive, except that after hour and a half head of analytical department of the Savetski district police department saw that the leaflets had the other side (with information about political prisoners) and took about 200 pieces without any procedures, saying that political prisoners do not relate to local elections," said Illia Dabratvor. “The picketers were not detained. On one side of the leaflet, there was information about the candidate, the slogans "No to War!", "For Belarus!", "For the Future!", "Long Live Belarus!" The other side had information about ten Belarusian political prisoners,” the BPF website says.

This is not the first seizure of printed materials from Dabratvor. On March 14, traffic police stopped a car in with Illia Dabratvor and a candidate of the United Civil Party, Anton Zhylko. They were going to meet Young Front leader Dzmitry Dashkevich, who was released on Friday after serving a 12-day administrative arrest. The activists spent more than three hours in the police department of Maskouski district. Police seized printed materials: more than a thousand leaflets of the candidate, several copies of the bulletin "BPF News" and leaflets of an observation campaign “Right to Choice".

Illia Dabratvor is preparing to challenge unlawful actions of the police.

"Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections"