Activist spends month in mental hospital over solidarity with Ukraine
Andrei Kasheuski. Photo by nn.by.
On March 27, Andrei Kasheuski, a resident of Zhodzina, was released from the National Centre for Mental Health in Minsk, after spending there a month over a yellow- blue ribbon he brought from the Kyiv Maidan.
Earlier, during just two months, Andrei Kasheuski was six times stopped by policemen while wearing the ribbon, and in February he was charged with an offense under Art. 23.4 of the Administrative Code (disobedience to authority) and sentenced to 10 days of arrest.
On February 26, the police searched the apartment of his parents in Smaliavichy. As a result, they took a dozen books. His parents were told that Andrei could face criminal charges for allegedly plotting a terrorist act in the Minsk metro. He says he still does not know if it was just a threat.
In the morning of February 28, Andrei Kasheuski was brought to a psychiatrist, who signed an order of compulsory treatment. According to Andrei, it were the police who initiated his placement in hospital.
A few years ago Kasheuski was put on a register with a local psychiatrist, after he hung a white-red-white flag above his parents’ house in Smaliavichy.
Andrei Kasheuski was an activist of the organizing committee of the party “Belarusian Christian Democracy”, and a candidate for the local council. He earlier distributed the Narodnaya Volya newspaper. He has been repeatedly brought to administrative responsibility for participation in opposition rallies.
