“Pahonya” Protests Against Road Works at Kuropaty :: Charter'97 :: News

“Pahonya” group of the Belarusian artists’ union called on the authorities to cease the construction works of the Minsk ring road in vicinity of the Kuropaty memorial. In a statement, passed at the organization’s assembly, it is said that the entombment, which embodies the travails and memory of the nation, is the most honorable place in the country. People’s attitude to Kuropaty reveals their moral, physical and spiritual condition. “The roads can be built at a certain distance from the tombs in order not to break the silence over the Belarusian necropolis,” – reads the document.

The authors remind that in late forties the Bolshevik authorities, covering up the traces of their crimes, dug out the remains of the killed people, and launched a highway upon their bones in sixties. At the same time, Kuropaty, like no other place of the Bolshevik massacre, has been explored at the highest scientific level. In 1989 the country’s government ruled to immortalize the memory of innocent victims of Stalin’s repressions, after which in 1993 they drew a draft project of running the ring road around Kuropaty rather than across it.

The artists express “indignation over the senseless punitive actions of the Belarusian authorities” against the “Belarusian patriots, who protect the tombs from demolition, defend the memorial’s territory from builders as well as stand on guard of the national honor and dignity.”

“Pahonya’s” members demand to immediate cease the persecution of the Kuropaty defenders, cancel arbitrary judicial decisions and liberate the innocently convicted.