One month in psychiatric hospital for solidarity with Ukraine

A Zhodzina resident spent a month at the Navinki psychiatric hospital for a yellow-blue ribbon from the Maidan protests.

Andrei Kasheuski of Zhodzina was discharged from the Navinki psychiatric hospital on March 27. He spent there a month for a yellow-blue ribbon, which Kasheuski had brought from the Maidan protests in Ukraine, Viasna human rights centre reports.

On February 26, the police searched the home of Kasheuski's parents in Smaliavichy, where he lives. The policemen seized about ten books and found a handful of gunpowder and some percussion caps that remained from his grandfather, an amatour hunter who had a special license. The policemen didn't made a search report. Kasheuski's parents were said their son could face criminal prosecution allegedly for preparing a terrorist attack on the Minsk metro, because the metro system was paralised on February 26 by a text message with a blast threat. Andrei was accused of putting a fake bomb in the metro. He still doesn't know whether it was just a threat or he is really under investigation.

Two police officers visited the house in Smaliavicny again on the morning of February 28. They were knocking, but Andrei didn't open the door. His father came from Zhodzina later and the policemen could enter the house. They called an ambulance, and Kasheuski was taken to a psychiatrist in Zhodzina, who sent him for compulsory treatment at the Navinki psychiatric hospital. The idea of compulsory treatment was proposed by the police officers, Andrei says.

Kasheuski was registered at a psychiatric facility some years ago for raising a national white-red-white flag over his house in Smaliavichy.

Andrei Kasheuski is an activist of the organising committee to create the Belarusian Christian Democracy party. He was a candidate in the local election and distributed Narodnaya Volia newspaper. He faced administrative proceedings several times for participating in opposition rallies.