Brest: Unknown Persons again Damage Automobile of Human Rights Activist Vialichkin

12.12.2007. Tags: Viasna, human rights defenders, Vialichkin.

The citizen of Brest Uladzimir Vialichkin parks his Nissan near the multistoried building where he lives. All paid garages and car parks are far away. A police car has always stood near the house, that’s why the human rights activist thought that there was no need to be afraid for his car.

‘I don’t know whose police car it is, but I see it here almost every night’, said Uladzimir Vialichkin. ‘I thought that it would deter robbers, but was mistaken. In the night of 10-11 December his car was damaged. The owner immediately called to the police. The policemen of Maskouski district police department of Brest registered that somebody has broken into the car and pulled out the number plates.

‘I have little hope that the police will find the robbers’, Vialichkin said. Pitifully enough, it is not the first case, but all previous cases were closed, though in some cases there was direct threat to my life.’ For instance, in 2004, during the run-up to the parliamentary election Uladzimir Vialichkin only by a miracle survived in a car accident near the village of Stradzichy in Brest oblast. The road police registered that the axle attachments on all the four wheels had been sawed by an unknown culprit. In winter 2006 Uladzimir Vialichkin was touring Brest oblast together with a candidate for President Aliaksandr Milinkevich. One night unknown persons smashed all the windows in the car.