“Young Front”: Pressure on Organization’s Activists Increased :: Charter'97 :: News

Members of the “Young Front” organization are noting that over the recent days pressure on the organization activists has grown. During a press conference the Young Front activists have informed about different methods of coercion used by special services.

An activist of the Young Front Zmitser Khvedaruk told that over the recent 2 weeks 6 members of the organization were summoned for a “conversation” by the KGB. A few underage activists were invited to the director’s office for so-called “preventive” conversations. A 17-year-old Hanna Shapilava who studies in a physics and mathematics class in Vitsebsk Lyceum was threatened that she would be transferred into an ordinary class in case she wouldn’t stop her activities.

Hanna told to Radio Svaboda that he friend Alena Bagdanava has even more problems:

“Alena Bagdanava’s family adopted a child from an orphanage. The family loves him, he lives in good conditions. He lives in the family for the third day. But policemen do not care about that. They came and said that they would seize the child and deprive Alena’s parents parental rights. Alena Bagdanava is an activist of the Young Front. It is simply a psychological pressure on the parents to make Alena stop her activities”.

Valer Matskevich, a chairman of Babrujsk branch of the “Young Front” told that different methods of pressure are started to be used against the organization’s activists.

“Not only open repressions are employed. They use pressure through military enlistment offices, through school administrations. Our members were evicted from educational institutions. Secret services warned administrations of universities that they should inform military enlistment offices directly, so that activists would not be able to use a chance to continue studies abroad”.

The Young Front activists have noted that three out of the six political prisoners, Pavel Sevyarynets, Zmitser Dashkevich, Artur Finkevich, are members of the organisation. Besides, Zmitser Dashkevich has been imprisoned for his activities in the Young Front.