Mass action of solidarity in Minsk

Every 16th of the month, the Day of Solidarity, dedicated to the memory of the abducted politicians and journalists and political prisoners of Belarus, is held. This time a big mass action took place in Minsk with specification of the abducted persons’ relatives, oppositional Belarusian politicians, civil activists and musicians, prohibited by authorities. More than 5000 people came to express their position. (18-SEP-06)

Photos: www.svaboda.org, www.nn.by, www.charter97.org

Belarus is the only country of Europe with this quantity of undetected political crimes, covered by the authorities, and political prisoners as such. The society still did not get answers on questions that many years have been asked to Lukashenka’s authorities: Where is Hanchar? Where is Krasouski? Where is Zakharanka? Where is Zavadski?

We still do not know nothing about the fate of abducted in 1999 vice speaker of the Parliament Viktar Hanchar, public activist and businessman Anatoly Krasouski, former Minister of Internal Affairs Yury Zakharanka and a cameraman of the ORT channel Dzmitry Zavadski (abducted in 2000).

10 political prisoners in Belarus
At the present moment there are 10 political prisoners in Belarus:
Kazulin, Aliaksandr (5.5 years of prison)
Astreyka, Mikalay (2 years of prison)
Dranchuk, Tsimafey (1 year of prison)
Seviarynets, Pavel (2 years of corrective work)
Statkevich, Mikalay (2 years of corrective work)
Klimau, Andrey (1.5 years of prison)
Skrabets, Siarhey (2.5 years of prison)
Finkevich, Arthur ( 2 years of corrective work)
Razumau, Mikalay (3 years of prison)
Kruk Ivan (6 months of prison)
9 more persons have completed their sentence and were released

The 16th of September 2006 action was sanctioned by authorities. But they tried to put obstacles for the managers and participants of the action. The police have stopped all young people who were going to the action and made them put off all the action’s  attributes:  badges “ For Freedom”, jeans ribbons, stickers with white-and-red-and white flag (national one), candles and portraits of disappeared persons. Some young participants were detained. The electricity was ‘incidentally’ off the line during the concert.
Anyway, the action was realized and has showed that Belarusian citizens continue to struggle for their right to be free and independent.