Siarhei Abrazouski fined again

23.05.2008. Tags: administrative trials, actions, ecology, fines, Party of Communists Belarusian.
Source: RFE/RL.

22 May the judge of Pukhavichy district court Sviatlana Akulich ruled to fine the civil activist Siarhei Abrazouski 1.4 million rubles for alleged organization of an unauthorized rally against the construction of a chemical plant near Minsk heating station #5.

Mr. Abrazouski does not agree with the verdict. He says that 29 March he was at a football match at the stadium in the settlement of Svislach. There were many spectators. The police qualified their conversation as ‘unauthorized rally’ and accused Abrazouski of its organization.

Siarhei Abrazouski is fined for the second time already. He was fined the same sum of money for organization of a protest rally on 22 March. The activist considers it as an attempt of intimidation and states that it will not stop his struggle against the construction of the chemical plant in the settlement of Druzhny, inhabited by emigrants from the places polluted with radiation as a result of Chernobyl accident.

The meetings against the construction of a pesticide plant by the Russian company Avgust-Bel have already taken place in the neighboring settlements of Belaye, Druzhny, Drychyn, Dukora, Kapeinaye, Rudzensk and Svislach. The dwellers of these settlements have already filed petitions to the authorities. However, according to the public activist Alena Butkouskaya, Minsk oblast executive committee and Pukhavichy district executive committee still have given no answers. 16 May a petition to Lukashenka, signed by 5.7 thousand people, was taken to Minsk.

The pressurization on the signers increases. ‘People are intimidated. They are deprived of wage bonuses and threatened with dismissal. At present about 80 workers of heating station #5 are directed to Vurnary (Chuvashiya, Russia), to have a look at the other plant of the Russian company. The authorities want them to bring good impression that could help to bring down the protests of the local population.

Reference note:

Avgust is a private Russian company with the office in Moscow, owning a plant for production of pesticides in Vurnary (Chuvashiya, Russia). In 1960-ies DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) was produced here for the whole USSR. Now the Russian side states that 18 kinds of pesticides will be produced in Belarus.

Siarhei Abrazouski is 49. He graduated from Minsk polytechnics and then from the Belarusian State Polytechnic Institute. Worked at enterprises in Minsk and in Pukhavichy district. Married, two sons. Chairman of Minsk oblast branch of the Party of Communists Belarusian. Heads the initiative group against construction of the chemical plant in the settlement of Druzhny in Pukhavichy district, planned by the Russian company Avgust-Bel.