Navahradak: Executive committee makes excuses for Yury Istomin’s detention

The story of Yury Istomin’s detention on August 18th was widely spread in the Internet. Istomin was detained by Navahradak police. That’s why he was late to register the signatures in the executive committee and submit documents for his registration as a UDF candidate in Navahradak district.

Quite unexpectedly, Navahradak rayon executive committee sent a letter to the leadership of UCP party about the incident. This is quite a unique fact by itself: never before the authorities in Hrodna region reacted this way on the news published in the Internet.

In the letter Navahradak rayon executive committee claims Istomin, detained by police, still had time to apply for registration. For some reason, in the end of the letter the authorities stressed that members of his initiative group had been detained by police many times. The executive committee blames Istomin for failure to submit the application.

“Navahradak authorities did not manage to camouflage their actions in such a way that they hamper the elections for the UDF candidate and implement the demand of the state leader to show the elections as free and fair, Istomin says. That is why they decided to justify themselves. As for the papers for signature registration and application for candidate’s registration, they were in the car far from the police station. We really had no time to submit them before the deadline. Now Navahrudak authorities are trying to shield themselves and lay the responsibility on someone else. Their actions prove that formally the authorities want to show the elections as free and transparent. In reality, they are looking for every pretext not to register an independent candidate as it was in my case when the police detained me seeing early agitation in my actions. They would not register me even if I was in time with the papers”.