Yaromenak's pregnant wife to police: Leave us in peace! (Video)

Former political prisoner Uladzimir Yaromenak is hiding to avoid the preventive arrest ahead of the ice hockey championship. It's possible that he won't be informed on time about the birth of his first child.

Valiantsina and Uladzimir Yaromenak are waiting for their baby to be born in the next few days. Doctors say it will be a girl. But Uladzimir has not been at home since May 5. He is hiding trying to avoid the preventive arrest ahead of the championship. He switched off his mobile phone and doesn't see his wife Valiantsina, Radio Svaboda reports.

His wife worries not to see Uladzimir near her. A blue minibus with men in civilian clothes stands in the yard of their block of flats.

“I am morally ready for the birth, but I worry for my husband. He calls me, it doesn't happen often,” Valiantsina says. “This is barbarity. Leave us in peace! You have your families, too!”

She was left alone without Uladzimir. Her parents live far from Minsk. Only friends support her.

“I don't know why they can detain him. None of Young Front members planned anything ahead of the championship. We've started a family life. After the release from the detention facility in Baranavichy, Uladzimir decided to live for his family. Our daughter will be born soon, so we need to pay more attention to our family and be together,” she said.

Valiantsina is confident the police persecute her husband and his friends only due to the ice hockey championship, which opens on May 9.

“They just fear that activists can express their point of view or say something contrary to what the authorities think or want others to think. It's probably a fear of the truth, of the fact that people may have different views. It's a fear of changes,” Valiantsina explains why the authorities are hunting down the activists.

About 20 opposition activists have been detained by the police in the last 20 days. Human rights defenders explain the arrests by the ice hockey championship in Minsk.