Motorcade Of Generosity

The police transported the activists from Kobryn to Baranavichy free of charge to prevent them from participation in the Square action in Minsk.

Candidate for Deputy Aliaksandr Mekh is convinced that he and Ryhor Hryk were detained on purpose not to let them got to Minsk to join the people in the Square.

On September 12, Kobryn police detained candidate for “deputy” at the “parliamentary elections”, member of the steering committee of the “Movement for Independence” Aliaksandr Mekh and his authorized representative Ryhor Hryk.

Mekh has told Radio Liberty that he was going to the bank to close the electoral account, accompanied by Ryhor Hryk. Head of Kobryn criminal police Henadz Kulik approached the car in which Ryhor Hryk was sitting, and “invited” him to the police department. The police interrogated Hryk about the picket in Kobryn and gave him a call-paper. Hryk and Mekh were released for half an hour to close the account, but later on the candidate and his representative returned to the police department.

The policemen gave the call-paper to Mekh as well – they summoned him for an interrogation as a witness in the pickets case. When they were supposed to release Hryk under the law, policemen from Baranavichy came for him – Ihar Misiura and Andrei Khomich. Despite Mekh’s protests, they delivered Hryk to Baranavichy for an interrogation. On the way, the policemen promised to feed Hryk, whose health condition was poor, but failed to do that and rendered him no medical assistance. Hryk arrived in Baranavichy without all the things, spectacles and clothes.

They set no allegations against the candidate and his representative. Mekh says that the police “didn’t meddle” into the pickets that he and Hryk conducted 2-3 times a day, before the elections.

“Probably, they had a right to detain Ryhor for only three hours, they took him in Kobryn at 12, and they took me at 15, so they transported Ryhor to Baranavichy to prolong the term of detention, - Mekh says. – The purpose of this preventive detention was not to let me and Ryhor go to Minsk to join the protest action against these “elections”.