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Troops Used to Break Up Opposition Meeting in Minsk
An opposition action in support of former Belarusian presidential candidate Alexander Kozulin was forcibly broken up yesterday. Kozulin was sentenced to five and a half years in prison for “malicious hooliganism and organization of riot” and is in a correctional colony in Vitebsk. He has been on a hunger strike for 53 days to protest Alexander Lukashenko's presidency, which he considers illegal, and to have the “Belarusian issue” raised in the UN Security Council. Friends and relatives urged Kozulin, who is also former rector of Belarusian State University, to abandon his hunger strike. They were joined this week by well-known writers, poets and artists but they too were unable to convince Kozulin to do so.
Yesterday's action was to support Kozulin and other convicts considered political prisoners. It began at 3:00 Moscow time on October Square in Minsk. Many would-be attendants were arrests on their way to the meeting, as police took people carrying flags, wearing emblems or speaking the Belarusian language (instead of Russian) into custody as they approached the square. Deputy head of Kozulin's Gramada Belarusian Social Democratic Party Alexey Korol and human rights activist Elena Tonkacheva were detained the day before the meeting for “confirmation of identity.”
In spite of a large number of police, special forces and law enforcement representatives in civilian clothes, about 50 people succeeded in gathering. They held portraits of Kozulin and chanted “Freedom!” and were surrounded by police and troops within minutes. Their signs were taken away from them and any effort to resist police efforts to remove them from the square was harshly met with. Several people, including human rights activist Valentin Stepanovich, were knocked to the ground, where they were beaten with clubs and kicked.
The police action lasted about 20 minutes and resulted in 32 of the protesters, by preliminary data, being taken into custody. Among them were leader of the United Civic Party Anatoly Lebedko, his deputy Valentin Polevikov and human rights activists Ales Belyatsky, Stepanovich and Ales Kalita. They were initially taken to a police station outside og Minsk where information was gathered, apparently with the intent of releasing them until their trials. Then the decision was made to take them back to the Central District police station in Minsk, from which they were taken to a holding facility for the night. They face trial for “active participation in an unauthorized action and insubordination to the legal demands of the police,” the standard charges in such circumstances.
www.commersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 11, 2006
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