Mass Arrests of Young Front Activists in Minsk :: Charter'97 :: News

Riot policemen detained about 30 members of the youth organization the Young Front yesterday. It occurred when a session of the central committee of the organization was taking place in a private apartment in Tsnyanskaya Street. On the same day searches were held in apartments of the Young Front activists.

The detained activists of the unregistered organization the Young Front were taken to the police department of Savetski district of Minsk. They managed to inform Radio Svaboda that they demanded activists Zmitser Khvedaruk and Yauhen Skrabutan confess participation in an unregistered organization. As we have informed, the leader of the Young Front Zmitser Dashkevich had been sentenced to an imprisonment under the same charges.

There was no information about the detainees for a long time. In four hours journalists saw the detainees taken from a police department and placed to paddy wagons. Activists Zmitser Khvedaruk and Yauhen Skrabutan were brought out of the building by KGB men separately. As said by Radio Svaboda correspondent, a bag was on Zmitser Khvedaruk’s head. Zmitser Khvedaruk sent a sms to his friends saying that he faces a criminal prosecution, and he had been taken to a KGB detention facility.

One girl in a paddy wagon was taken bad, and an ambulance was called in for her.

At 10 p.m. SWAT policemen in masks burst into an apartment of a Young Front activist Aleh Korban. The guy was detained and taken in an undisclosed location.

After 11 p.m. all detained Young Front activists were released from a paddy wagon, including Yauhen Skrabutan, previously interrogated by KGB men.

At the same time searches were held in apartments of Young Front activists Alyaksei Yanusheuski, an underage Nasta Palazhanka, and Yaraslau Hryschenya from Baranavichy.

The whereabouts of Aleh Korban and Zmitsre Khvedaruk are still unknown. Their associates are to wait for them near the building of the court of Savetski district of Minsk on February 5 since morning. If the activists wouldn’t be taken to the court, young activists suppose a criminal action would have been opened against them for participation in an unregistered organization, and they could have been placed to a remand prison.

Young Front activists were detained by policemen for 7 hours. Parents of underage activists were told that their children hadn’t been detained, and they could leave the police department, though it wasn’t true.