Valery Fralou: “Stsyapan Should Hang Himself” :: Charter'97 :: News

Belarusian politicians comment on the amendments to the Criminal Code, adopted by the so-called “chamber of representatives” in the first reading, and the statements of the chairman of the KGB (State Security Committee) Stsyapan Sukharenka (Stepan Sukhorenko). One of the articles proposed by the chief KGB man of the country is discredit to the Republic of Belarus. It envisaged arrest for the term for up to six months, or imprisonment for up to two years. The chairman of the KGB Stsyapan Sukharenka explained to the deputies that several camps for training militants allegedly have been acting in Belarus. According to Mr Sukharenka, “these camps have been training militants for participation in mass riots during the presidential elections next year”.

The chairman of the KGB stated that these camps have been working in Vilejka and Kruptsy regions. These camps are also situated outside Belarus, and their main objective is to repeat “colour revolution”. Stsyapan Sukharenka says that “In reality we are facing the entire industry in training of the so-called “militants of colour revolution”.

Commenting on these statements, a former deputy, one of the leaders of the “Respublika” group, General Valery Fralou said to the Radio Svaboda that if somebody had been training militants, those who had been doing that should have been arrested.

“This all is far-fetched. Where have you been looking at, if you knew about that?! And if you have not arrested anyone, where are the facts? It’s an idle talk, the more so, when isolated cases have been overlooked by them, which could be understood in view of coming young people to the KGB… And if they have failed to notice the whole industry, Stsyapan should go and hang himself somewhere. It’s a mere idiocy!”

The amendments to the Criminal Code have been called “a logical movement of the country on the path that has been selected by the regime – towards the year 1937”.

“To stifle, to prohibit, to hold back, to shot, to imprison – that’s the range of methods by which the regime rules. It is written down in our constitution in the first article that we have a democracy, a law-based, social, sovereign state. So we see that soon absolutely nothing would be left of this first article,” General Fralou said.