Zmitser Bandarenka: If we betray Berazhkou today, hundreds of people from sports sector to be imprisoned tomorrow

People should struggle for release of the founder of Pressball newspaper and the former director general of Dinamo.

Such an opinion has been expressed by a coordinator of the civil campaign “European Belarus” Zmitser Bandarenka in an interview to charter97.org as he commented on the arrest of one of the founders of Pressball newspaper, an acting director general of Minsk ice hockey club Dinamo, Uladzimir Berazhkou (Vladimir Berezhkov).

- For the moment Uladzimir Berazhkou is detained and kept in the remand prison №1 in Valadarski Street as a suspect in theft of funds. How would you comment on this fact?

- I have the greatest respect for Uladzimir Berazhkou, as he is a virtuoso of the Belarusian sports journalism, and Pressball newspaper headed by him for many years is the most deserving newspaper at the market.

I understand his aspirations for self-fulfillment (I graduated from the Belarusian Institute of Physical Training as well), and by that I can explain his move for change of profession, change of occupation, when he started to work in the management of Minsk Dinamo.

I do not want to be called Cassandra, but the moment I learnt that Berazhkou changed his work and started to work at Dinamo hockey club, I told my friends: he will be imprisoned in half a year.

To my mind, it was a usual officials’ reshuffle, when a person could not be arrested, he is offered a position, “promotion”, and then the person is dealt with.

But it didn’t happen in half a year, as Dinamo club, one of which top managers Berazhkou was, turned out to be extremely successful in the Continental Hockey League championship. They didn’t manage to move further than the first play-off round, however everyone was talking about the undeniably new face of Minsk Dinamo and its new success.

But time passed, and now Uladzimir Berazhkou is behind the bars. I could say that it is definitely a revenge for his strong spirit, for his independence. Even in the conditions in which he had to work, in the conditions of dictatorship, in the conditions of direct control of the state on sports, and especially hockey, he still reached acme of professional skills.

I found his “step into the mouth of the tiger” – transfer to the structure of Dinamo Minsk – to be highly risky.

- To your mind, should Berazhkou be considered a political prisoner, and should people fight for his release, as it happens with other prisoners of the regime?

- Undoubtedly, his release should be fought for, as Pressball newspaper itself, though it was mostly a sports newspaper, it promoted ideas of Belarusian patriotism. It is a Belarusian sports newspaper in the best sense of the word.

At this point we face the situation that in reality (and I know that from my own experience of serving terms in prisons and penal facilities of Belarus) there are very many “political prisoners”, or the people who are convicted for independent approach to their profession, for not bending their knees to the government, or even bid defiance to it.

They could be officials, or simply people with a burning sense of justice, professionals, directors, businessmen. In fact, these people are “political prisoners”, but they are imprisoned under completely different articles.

While Belarusian opposition, Belarusian human rights defence movement have learnt to defend themselves, unfortunately, representatives of the business community, officials, directors do not realize their interests and do not understand that they should show solidarity and fight for their professional interests and their associates, though crackdown on them is by far greater than against the opposition.

The case of Berazhkou is exactly the test for the editorial office of Pressball, and for other people connected with sports. If they betray Berazhkou today, hundreds of people from the sports sector are to found themselves behind the bars tomorrow. If there are dozens of them today, a “campaign” of fight against “saboteurs” in Belarusian sports could start tomorrow.

Another problem is that all sports federations and sports clubs in Belarus, primarily hockey and football ones, are headed by former higher officers of the KGB and Interior Affairs Ministry. They are people, who know nothing about sport, but they use the “proven” methods, and when something goes wrong, they frame up criminal cases.

A campaign against people in sports sector could start by the arrest of Berazhkou. People, and primarily his colleagues, should stand up against that.