Police raid on BCD activist's home in Hrodna

The police were looking for illegal printed materials in the flat of an opposition activist from Hrodna, who was detained yesterday.

Syarhei Verameyenka was detained yesterday on his way to the office of the organising committee to create the Belarusian Christian Democracy party. Two men in civilian clothes, who said they were police officers, stopped him at the entrance to the building.

The activist was taken to Hrodna's Leninski district police department. He had leaflets calling to support political prisoners in his bag. BCD members planned to hand them out as part of the campaign “Write a letter to a political prisoner”. The policemen drew up a report and decided to search the activist's flat.

“I had to let them enter the flat, because they threatened they would receive a prosecutor's warrant if I refused. I had nothing to hide. They searched the flat and seized two copies of Haradzenskaya Krynitsa newspaper,” he said in an interview with charter97.org.

The activist was not jailed, but he thinks he will be tried and fined on accusations of distributing unregistered materials.