‘Freedom to political prisoners!’ leaflets confiscated at rally in Minsk

A BPF municipal council candidate Illa Dabratvor, who held a rally near Kamarouski marketplace, got about 200 election leaflets confiscated.

It is notable that it was the slogan ‘Freedom to political prisoners!’ and the information on Belarusian political prisoners that caught the attention to Dabratvor’s agitation materials, the human rights center Viasna reports.

The BPF candidate shared his impressions of the electoral rally.

“The rally’s outcomes are in positive in general apart from the fact that in one and a half hours the head of Minsk Soviet district police department analytical office noted that the leaflets had the backside (with the information on political prisoners) and took about 200 units away with no registration – allegedly political prisoners had nothing to do with municipal elections”, - Illa Dabratvor said.

The rally’s participants were not detained. The candidate’s leaflet had information about him on one side together with slogans ‘Now war!’, ‘For Belarus!’, ‘For future!’, ‘Long live Belarus!’. On the other side of the leaflets there was information about ten Belarusian political prisoners, BPF party’s web-site reports.

This is not the first case Dabratvor gets his printed materials confiscated. On 14 march a road police inspector stopped the car, in which there were him and a United Civic Party municipal candidate Anton Zhylko. They were meeting a Young Front activist Dzmitry Dashkievich from the isolation center in Askrescina Street after he had served a 12-day administrative arrest. The activists spent over three hours at Minsk Moscow district’s police department. Dabratvor got printed materials confiscated: over a thousand officials candidate’s leaflets, several issues of the ‘BPF News’ bulletin and the leaflets of the ‘Right to Choose’ observation campaign.

Illa Dabratvor is preparing to appeal against the illegal actions of the policemen shortly.