Head of Vaukavysk Branch of UPB Arrested for Three Days :: Charter'97 :: News

Today Alyaksandr Baradaukin, the head of Vaukavysk branch of the United Civil Party, was arrested for three days in Vaukavysk. The court sentenced him to arrest for participation in an unsanctioned picket. Another UCP activist is to pay a fine which amounts to his half-year pension.

On August 27, when participants of the repeated congress of the UPB were taken to Vaukavysk House of Culture, some citizens, journalists and activists of the UPB from Hrodna, who were not let in, gathered in the street. They all were attracted by the event organized on order and with support of the authorities. Justice Ministry invalidated the results of the 6th congress of the UPB, which had taken place in Hrodna in March, and where Andzelika Borys was elected the chairperson of this organization. In Vaukavysk the name of the only candidate, 69-year-old Jozef Lucznik, was entered in the voting papers, and delegates voted for him.

“It was written in the report that we held an unsanctioned picket, that we shouted anti-presidential slogans, violated public order, though policemen where everywhere around us. We have not shouted anything, we stood silently,” Alyaksandr Baradaukin said to Radio Svaboda.

At the court policemen charged Alyaksandr Baradaukin simply with standing with a black strip on his arm near his friends, and together they allegedly formed a picket. The head of the local UCP branch was sentenced to three days of arrest by judge Shukajla for this “offence”, and policemen arrested immediately.

Yesterday judge Lantsevich fined an activist of the United Civil Party Vital Hulyak 600,000 Br on the same charges.