New Arrests Usher in New Trials :: Charter'97 :: News

The Freedom Day was traditionally marked this year: not massively but with arrests. ZUBR movement’s activists Evgeny Afnagel, Igor Vinnikov, Tatiana Elovaya, Denis Dashinsky and Sergei Buevets were arrested in no time after the end of the action. Dmitry Borodko and Leonid Novitsky, ZUBR activists from Borisov, were apprehended minutes before the action. ZUBR coordinator Timofei Dranchuk was captured a few hours before the start of the rally for his part in last year’s action, marking BPR’s anniversary. They also arrested organizers of the action – BPF “Adradjenne” head Vintsuk Vyachorka and Vladimir Kishkurno. In total, they detained 15. Yesterday night all underage people were set free. The rest stayed overnight in Okrestina confinement jail. Today they will stand trial in the Sovietsky court of Minsk.

Overall a few hundred protesters engaged in the March 25 rally. Minsk authorities forbade holding the Freedom Day action in central city, sending oppositionists to the Bangalor square. The organizers were opposed to that. They turned up at the Yakub Kolas square with national flags and flowers. Many brought children with them. But this didn’t stop the law-enforcers. Even before the rally the square was crammed with police and plain-clothed agents. They detained everyone on their way to the destination. Among the first detainees were six underage guys from Smolevichi – Gavrilovich Maksim, Apatsky Vitaly, Rebitsky Aleksei, Demesh Sergei, Ermakov Vasily. They were taken to the Sovietsky police station and set free late in the evening.

They also apprehended ZUBR activists Dmitry Borodko and Leonid Novitsky. Police captured in the adjacent yard for alleged identity clarification purposes the BSDP NG leader Nikolai Statkevich. However, they let him go soon.

The action itself lasted for no more than 15-20 minutes. The floor was again given to the BPF leader Vintsuk Vyachorka, who greeted his countrymen with the holiday. In no time after that a riot police bus pulled over. It took them five minutes to oust everyone from the square, including elderly people, teenagers and females…