Homel Human Rights Watchdogs Demand To Stop Army Hazing

The campaign was launched after an incident in the military unit №92616 in Brest, which received media publicity.

Two soldiers, draftees from Vetka (Homel region) fled the military unit. As said by family members of the soldiers, the young men had to take extreme measures after beating, threats and cruelty from senior conscripts. The unit commanding officer immediately ordered to carry out inspection to check the facts. As informed by the Defense Ministry, the commander of the unit initiated a criminal case on charges relating Article 443 (Violation of military regulations on relations between servicemen).

“Unfortunately, this case just confirms that the established practice of non-manual relations in the army are not restrained by officials of military units – the appeal of the initiators of the campaign against army bullying, “dedovshchina”, posted at zvarot.by website, reads.

The authors call upon citizens of Belarus to show solidarity and sign the address to the Defense Minister with a request “to stop the vicious practice of non-manual relations, which is carried out by his subordinate military.”

“I have four soldiers in my family – one has returned to civilian life, another is in the army, and two are still to do military service in the future. I was in the service in Germany once, and I have a first-hand experience what army bullying is. Today we live in the 21st century, and what we have learnt about the guys coming from the same district, from Vetka, could not leave us indifferent,” – BelaPAN was told by the initiator of the campaign, a human rights activist from Homel Leanid Sudalenka.

As said by him, the aim of the campaign is “to speak aloud about the army hazing, or “dedovshchina”, for the whole country to hear, so that commanders won’t conceal this incident.” The human rights activist believes that every concerned citizen should sign this appeal, as this problem concerns almost everyone.