Three 5+ Coalition Activists Detained for Leaflet Distribution

On June 24 at 7 p.m. three Navapolatsk activists of the People’s Coalition Five Plus were detained while distributing leaflets against the third term.

The police detained:
1. Zmitser Salawyow, human rights activist
2. Ina Barysevich, member of Navapolatsk Belarusian Students Association
3. Alaksei Trubkin, member of BPF party

The detained were taken to Navapolatsk city police board. They were kept by police till 9 p.m. The police seized the leaflets, but did not write any reports. The only report drawn up was of leaflet seizure from Zmitser Salawyow.
During the time they spent in the police station the detained observed different attitudes to themselves: from interest to undisguised aggression. For instance, police officer Alexander Yarashenka kept yelling on the detained: “You, the opposition, want to bring war here, just as in Abkhazia, I was there and saw how it was”, “you have never worked anywhere” (to Salawyow, who until recently was a research fellow at Polatsk university). Interesting enough, Yarashenka went to the same secondary school as Salawyow did, and remained in the same grade for several years. A senior lieutenant, who heard Yarashenka’s screams from a different room, had to come and take Yarashenka away in order to calm him down.
Members of the local 5+ coalition plan to complain against the illegal actions of police officers.