The Human Rights Center “Viasna”

On 4 June Judge of Minsk region Vyachaslau Tuleika sentenced the chairman of the Memorial branch of the Belarusian Voluntary Society of History and Culture Monuments Protection Viachaslau Siwchyk to 10 days of administrative arrest.

On 3 June in the evening representative of the democratic movement installed a memorial shield on one of the mass graves where the remains of 62 persons, shot by Stalin’s chastisers in the 1930-ies.

On 3 June 1988 the Belarusians learnt the truth about Stalin’s repressions in the country through an article Kurapaty –the Road of Death in the Litaratura i Mastatstva newspaper, written by Zianon Pazniak and Yauhen Shmyhaliou. This article also provoked one of the first mass protest action in the USSR – people came to Kurapaty on Dziady (the day of the dead).

At about 7.10 p.m. on 9 January in the center of Minsk the police detained an opposition activist Viachaslau Siwchyk. According to his mother, Halina Siwchyk, he was accused of dirty swearing and guarded to Tsentralny district police department of Minsk. This night he spent in the remand prison in Akrestsin Street.