Observer expelled for photo of empty polling station

Syarhei Bakhun was ordered to leave the 373th polling station in the 101st constituency of Minsk.

The reason was publishing a photo of the empty polling station, Belsat TV reports.

“We were counting every voter. We saw that the election would not be valid. Voter turnout was about 40% at 6 p.m. Someone then posted a photo of the empty polling station  on the Internet. Someone phoned the commission chair. He called a young man from Belaya Rus organization, who began to shout demanding to remove us from the station,” Syarhei Bakhun says.

The polling station was located in a school. The chair of the election commission was the school principal and commission members were teachers and ideology officers. The school principal ordered them to write applications for removing pro-opposition observers.

Syarhei Bakhun noted the observers and the commission had different statistics of early-vote turnout.