9-year old enemy of the regime
14:03, Valery Schukin — Politics
In Stalin’s times, any criticism that appeared in the central media was a black sign. The publication was followed by an arrest, months of investigation and tortures, 10-15 minutes of a trial, and an exile to a labour camp – one year for each minute in the court.
The Belarusian state of the present, in the new century of the new millennium, victimizes those who are not welcome at Court in a similar way.
Still judges take the confession of the accused obtained with physical and moral tortures as the key evidence. Although there is no direct link between the term of imprisonment and duration of trial: a process can last days and weeks.
Collective nature of the court has been abolished (judge-attorney-state lawyer or only judge-attorney trials common in Stalin’s times). Appointed by the ruling regime, the judge is the only one to send a disfavoured Belarusian to a concentration camp for a decade. Moreover, the Belarusian arbiter of justice (unlike Stalin’s judges) bases the sentence on testimonies of the police and special service officers. Witnesses’ testimonies that contradict the police are announced inconsequent.
Thus, when the Belarusian Television (BT) channel – the regime’s main trumpet – showed a scathing report on the family of opposition activist Krystsina Shatsikava in the ideological programme “Panarama,” the public sensed oncoming repressions against the family from Magiliou.
The head of the family – Krystsina Valeryeuna – is particularly disfavoured by the Belarusian state. Hostility grew after the tent camp in Kalinouski Square of Minsk. Those who had even minor doubts in the propriety of the general line were declared “enemies of the nation.” Not only does K.Shastsikava doubt; she advocates the state power for the nation, not for the “tsar.”
In Stalin’s times, children of the repressed, teenagers above 12, were also announced enemies of the nation. Krystsina’s sons haven’t reached this age yet: the younger is 9, the elder – 11. But the young age of the kids didn’t stop the Belarusian television.
BT has visited Magiliou school #37 twice. The first visit was unsuccessful: Yagor was sick and stayed home. They came for the second time when the boy got better. Apart from filming a lesson, the script required filming outside. But the school group left to have a PT lesson while the “enemy sonny” stayed inside as he had a medical permission.
The vital state mission was close to a failure. Head of junior studies Tatsiana Razakhatskaya rushed to the classroom, grabbed Yagor Shatsikau and ordered to throw the boy to the BT ”investigators.” Yagor was put in front of his classmates; the camera was set on…
TV-screens have demonstrated numerous reports on what adults armed with rubber “democratization” batons and big stars do with persistent cameramen. The 9-year boy is too small to grab a baton and smash their camera and cameraman for unauthorized shooting. The little kid tried to protect himself from blatant interference covering his face with his small palm.
Probably BT didn’t dare to film K.Shatsikava’s elder son because of possible resistance.
Showing the kid’s hand, “Panarama” concludes: he is deficient, which is induced by his “crazy” mom who spends months at opposition actions. Krystsina was labeled “crazy” according to the Stalin’s pattern: she was captured by special service officers in the street and violently taken to a mental hospital, where “shrinks” eagerly implemented the state order for the diagnose.
Psychiatrists of Stalin’s times were dismissed from the world community of psychiatrists. Today’s Belarusian psychiatrists who perform orders of the special service are likely to find themselves in a reservation soon.
Having learnt about the parents’ meeting of school #37 scheduled for November 14 I arrived to Magiliou. Not in vain! The information I got puzzled me.
No, I wasn’t puzzled to learn that a 16-year old schoolgirl of school #37 got pregnant. Neither was I puzzled to see pupils of the best school of the city (according to the head of studies) with louses crawling on their heads and itch-mites on their bodies; to see children who weren’t taught to use handkerchiefs; to see children whose underwear isn’t change for weeks; to see pupils only a quarter of whom brush their teethe…
But these are parents who are to bother; the fault of the school is relative.
It was a revelation to me to learn that a long time passed by a computer can provoke enuresis (an obvious lack of medical knowledge), which was announced to the parents; that a sausage is not meat since there is only 23 percent of meat in Belarusian sausages, the rest – horns and hooves (and I was wondering why my cat refuses to eat Belarusian sausages); that all extra study groups are not free of charge (I remember in the post-war hungry years when I was a pupil myself none school extra study groups required a fee); that grandmothers must be isolated from their grandchildren in a locked room (I have 7 grandchildren and was really shocked to hear such a pedagogical recommendation); that homeless dogs and cats are shot off in the school (so that the children see?!); that junior pupils are not allowed to leave classrooms (this is a real torture for children: it’s not so easy for a small kid to stay 45 minutes without motion); that there is only one class of the Belarusian literature per week in Magiliou school #37 (and at the same time Yagor’s teacher complained children didn’t know Belarusian words)…
The immensely high number of pupils at school #37 came as no surprise for me; the lack of schools is common for ruling regime. All their time is eaten into by billions spent on space exploration, silicon valleys and nuclear power stations construction, keeping dozens of thousands of “enemies of the nation” imprisoned. They are too occupied to take care of schools.
I was astonished with the administrative solution to this problem invented by the management of the Magiliou school. Those who come to school for the second shift classes are not allowed to enter the building unless the first shift pupils leave it. A barrier of teachers’ bodies is put up at the school porch in order to prevent unauthorized penetration of the second shift pupils.
I don’t know what I would do about that problem, but I would never make children, including small pupils of the junior school, stay outside in rain and snow, frost and wind. Health ruined in this school yard cannot be restored with any ice palaces.
Teacher of group 3 “E” Galina Zakharyeva said at the parents’ meeting she had no particular claims to Shatsikau junior apart for some typical remarks. The kid is sociable. Nor did she complain on Krystsina Shatsikava.
At the same time, school’s headmaster Valery Talmachou ran down the pupil and his mother on October 13 in the TV programme “Panarama.” But it looked like the school administrator didn’t have a clear idea of the ones he was defaming: he doesn’t know the grades that brothers Shatsikaus study in. For some reason he called Yagor a 2nd year pupil while the boy has been studying in the third grade for half a year already.
I don’t understand why the headmaster said that Krystsina Shatsikava didn’t attend parents’ meetings. Talmachou wasn’t present there and his subordinates didn’t register the parents who came to the meeting.
At the meeting, Krystsina Shatsikava asked head of studies Razakhatskaya and teacher Zakharyeva trying to figure out who had ordered the Belarusian television this ideological pasquinade, but didn’t get an adequate reply.
