Police try to disrupt summer rest of democratic youth

A summer camping of democratic youth in Minsk region faces the threat of disruption due to the extraordinary activity of the police, who have detained some activists and searched their belongings.

The matter is that about thirty youth activists decided to have a rest near a lake in Minsk region. They chose a beautiful lake on the border of Smaliavichy and Cherven districts and on 2 August made a tent camp there. However, soon the police agents of secret services have come.

The youth activist from Zhodzina Siarhei Hudzilin said:
The police examined our belongings. Secret services conducted interrogations and filmed everything with their cameras. They explained that a murder and a raping of a young person had taken place nearby, thats why they searched either for the weapons or for the criminals. They searched 20 persons and confiscated all notebooks, textbooks and aides. They also took an ecologist who explained that our tents were less than 50 meters away from water, which was a violation of the instructions. Most of all they wanted to find our Swedish guests.

According to Mr Hudzilin, representatives of Swedish Christian-democratic youth came to Belarus to have a rest. On 4 August the participants of the tent camp Pavel Krasouski (Zhodzina) and Ivan Shyla (Salihorsk) were taken to the town of Cherven. There they were interrogated about the location of foreigners.

They were afraid that foreigners from Sweden will come to Belarus. What will we do together? I explained to the head of Cherven police that we will spend our leisure time together. He simply couldnt understand how we can spend our leisure with foreign citizens, commented Ivan Shyla.

Cherven District Board of Internal Affairs refused to comment on the interrogations. On 4 August Krasouski and Shyla were let go. Then it was decided to move the camp to another place.