Lenin still alive in Belarus

Participants of the protest action on November 7 had trials in the Leninski district court of Minsk today. On the day, when the Belarusian authorities officially celebrated the anniversary of the “great October”, Young Front activists came to the KGB building with a banner “Communism Must be Tried by Tribunal!”

The young oppositionists were arrested 15 minutes after the beginning of the action and guarded to the Leninski district militia department of Minsk and then to a jail on Akrestin Street. The activists spent three days behind the bars.

All detained Young Front members were sentenced to three days of arrest. Judge Ihar Hermanovich sentenced Young Front activists Alyaksei Yanusheuski and Anastassya Loika, Mikhail Khoma judged Anastasya Palazhanka and Tatsyana Shaputska, and judge Valyantsin Zyankevich delivered judgement to Anton Rusin. The young people were found guilty in violation an administrative article – “organising and participating in unauthorised event”.

All activists were set free as they spent a term of arrest before the trial.

“We were detained by riot militiamen. They didn’t introduce themselves, didn’t say on the ground of what article were detained. It was very cold in the jail, especially at night. Jail food is awful, it is impossible to eat, but we must to pay for these conveniences,” Alyaksei Yanusheuski told to the Charter’97 press center about conditions in the jail.

The Young Front activists weren’t surprised they were thrown in prison for a peaceful protest action near the KGB building.

“The arrest didn’t come as a surprise for me. Under dictatorship, when the authorities support and promote communist values, we can’t expect anything else. I know that people with communist flags, portraits of Lenin and Stalin were walking around Minsk on November 7. Nobody arrested them! They arrest for a national flag, for a banner “Communism Must be Tried by Tribunal!”, but portraits of bloody communistic leaders are allowed,” Alyaksei Yanusheuski said.