Homiel: Maryia Bahdanovich Detained for Handing out Newspapers

On 7 November in Lenin Square in Homiel the police detained the member of United Civil Party Maryia Bahdanovich for distribution of Tovarishch newspaper (edition of the Party of Communists of Belarus) together with the enclosed fly-sheet concerning problems of the housing economy. She was detained at a police station for two hours. The police took explanations from her and confiscated 72 copies of the newspaper. They didn’t compose any protocol of confiscation. According to M. Bahdanovich, the main pretensions of the police concerned the fly-sheet that contained no issue data. The fly-sheet included the comparative table of the public utilities fees for 2001 and 2004 along with related remarks of officials and ordinary citizens.