Ales Straltsou: “Policeman told that he was instructed to put on plainclothes and be among demonstrators”
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12:29, — Politics
Today in the court of Tsentralny district of Minsk the second day of the “Process of Fourteen” goes on. Defendants have pleaded not guilty.
The leader of the youth organization of the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (Hramada) Ales Straltsou shares impressions after the first day of the trial.
- The impression is that there are too many people in Belarus who work using methods of the 1920ies and 1930ies of the last century. The system created by Stalin works until this day. It means that for thirty pieces of silver people are ready to do anything they are ordered, not thinking about consequences.
Our rights were not respected in the court. Any testimony of the accused which differ from the official point of view of the investigation, was interrupted in mid sentence. Besides, there were no answers to questions we asked to witnesses against defendants.
One of the witnesses, a traffic policeman, claimed that he had been ordered to stay near the square and protect public order during the unsanctioned mass event. I asked:
- Does it belong to duties of traffic police to maintain public order during unsanctioned mass events?
The judge disallowed my question.
The second witnesses against defendants stated that he personally ordered the driver of bus No. 100 to drive through the crowd.
Defendants asked him: “Why has he commanded that? Did he realize possible outcome of that order?”
We haven’t been given any intelligible answer.
Another witness told that he had been instructed to put on plainclothes and to stay in the crowd, and to follow orders of his commanders. He said that on January 21 he saw Andrei Kim who with a ‘gramophone” (instead of megaphone) in his hands incited disorders. As said by the witness, at the moment when Kim tried to break the line of riot policemen, policemen in plainclothes were around him. The question in this connection is: “If Kim hit a policeman, why wasn’t he detained immediately, as he was surrounded by policemen all the time?”
Other evidence of a witness: participants of the rally gathered on October Square shouting slogans and allegedly using foul speech. They moved into a crossing in a column, cursing. When they marched along the avenue, they were cursing, and when they went to Independence Square they used foul language, and when they blocked the avenue they were shouting slogans and cursing.
This episode reminds 1996 when a deaf-mute person was convicted for shouting slogans and cursing.
As that riot policeman was born in 1973, I think he has been giving such evidence having nothing in common with reality for many years.
