Grassroots protests against Russian pesticide plant (Photo)
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9:49, — Politics
About three hundred people attended a protest action against construction of a pesticide plant in Druzhny village. The people blocked the road, picketed a building of the Russian firm and demanded the officials to respond.
The people gathered on a village square near the monument to victims of the Charnobyl disaster. A considerable part of Druzhny dwellers is migrants from the Charnobyl zone.
Druzhny dwellers collected 6 thousand sign-ins to a demand to the authorities. But the local administration began to press them to withdraw the sign-ins, so the decision to have a meeting was taken. The action was near grassroots, Radio Svaboda reports.
One of the activists of the initiative group on holding the meeting gave a short speech. She said they had addressed all echelons, all officials, but had received only formal replies. “We address directly the head of state, he is a guarantor of the Constitution and must defend us,” she said. After that the people began to shout “No to chemical plant!” Many of them wore gas masks, carried posters.
The action was near the end, when the people suddenly noticed Yury Shapavalau, a deputy of the Pukhavichy district council, staying among militia officers. They encircled him and demanded to give a speech or some answers. But the official brushed aside people and tried to go away.
The people formed a narrow circle round him, didn’t allow him to get into the car, and blocked the road for 20 minutes.
Militiamen at last released his car, but the people blocked the road, and then went to the office of the Russian company Avgust-Bel. They shouted “No to chemical plant!“ near the office of the company. They began to quarrel with militiamen who tried to make the people disperse. All roads to Minsk are blocked with militia.
The people demand the militia officers to answer where Syarhei Abrazouski, an activist of the initiative group against the plant construction, is. The people learnt he was detained before the action allegedly for he had forged driver’s license. Mr Abrazouski is to have the trial on Monday, 28 April.
