Unashamed Crackdown in Hrodna :: Charter'97 :: News

KGB and riot forces In Hrodna purge a private apartment of the chairman of the All-Nation Strike Committee of the Businessmen of the Republic of Belarus, member of the Europen coalition “Free Belarus” Uladzimir Levanewski, and carried out a search. The search was implement also in private dwellings of his mother and mother-in-law. Valery Levanewski and his son Uladzimir now are serving a sentence of 15 days for organizing a protest action of businessmen on May 1. Participants of the rally called upon Lukashenka’s resignation. Officers of the KGB also searched the apartment and summer cottage of the vice chairman of the All-Nation Strike Committee of the Businessmen Alyaxandr Vasilyew. The home of his wife’s sister has been searched as well. The city prosecutor’s office had issued the writs for searching these apartments in connection with bringing up a criminal action against dissemination of printed materials insulting honor and dignity of Alyaxandar Lukashenka, told Alyaxandr Vasilyew to the press center of the Charter-97.

On May 7 at 2 p.m. people introducing themselves as KGB representatives tried to break in the three-room apartment of the Levanewskis in the Limoge Street. At that time Levanewski’s children, 12-year-old Anton and 17-year-old Katsyaryna, and his mother-in-law Halina, were inside. They refused to open the door. Then the telephone and electricity were cut off in the apartment. After that riot police, people in black and white hats-masks, arrived. They forced the locks of the two doors and entered the apartment. The search in the apartment of Levanewski lasted for six hours, Radio Svaboda informs. The KGB people made underage Katsyaryna to testify against her father. After the search she was taken to the regional KGB department. All computer equipment, CDs, diskettes, videocassettes, documents in the house were confiscated.

The elder son of Levanewski, 20-year-old Dzmitry, was taken to the KGB as well. His and his sister Katsyaryna’s interrogation lasted until late in the night. As Dzmitry Levanewski told to the Press center of the Charter-97, during the investigation the KGB officers were interested, who was the author of the leaflet, that, as said by them, insults honor and dignity of Alyaxandr Lukashenka. As said by him about “honor and dignity insulting”, in this leaflet there was a poem, evaluating the results of Lukashenka’s rule negatively.

As said by Dzmitry Levanewski, now KGB officers are looking for his mother for interrogation. Valery Levanewski’s wife is not in the city at the moment.

On May 7 officers of the KGB direction of Hrodna region had detained the chairman of the All-Nation Strike Committee of Belarus, Alyaxandr Vasilyew. His apartment had been searched. The KGB confiscated two computers, a printer, different documents and diskettes there. His summer cottage had been searched, as well as the apartment of his wife’s sister, where a computer had been confiscated as well. Alyaxandr Vasilyew and his wife were taken to the KGB for interrogation.

“In fact, the KGB men are trying to punish people for unwritten creative works of the nation. This is not a kind of documents the KGB officers and hundreds of people must work for. I have an impression that the Article 33 of Constitution that guarantees freedom of expression, had been annulled in Belarus. Another stage of turning the Belarusians into silent slaves is taking place in Belarus”, told Mikola Markevich to the press-center of the Charter-97. Markevich was sentenced to a year and a half of detention by Hrodna court in 2001 for publishing a critical verse about Lukashenka in the independent newspaper “Pahonya”, where he was an editor-in-chief. lllll