Performance against home arrest to opposition activists
On 4 February a performance was held in the centre of Minsk in defense of oppositional activists sentenced to house arrest for participation in the protest rally of market vendors.
The performance was held by activists of the civil campaign European Belarus. One of it participants came to the building of the Belarusian Philharmonic Hall on Yakub Kolas Square and sat on a stool in the middle of a square which symbolized her house. The girl was reading a book, imitating usual actions of a person in one’s apartment. However, all attempts to leave the ‘house’ or start talking to passers-by were suppressed by four “guards standing along the perimeter. They explained to people around that the girl had been sentenced to a house arrest for participation in an oppositional rally, and she cannot leave the apartment and talk to other people, the web-site jeans-by.com reports.
After a few “violations” of the rules of the ‘punishment’ the girl was ‘arrested’ and led away.
Numerous passers-by who observed the performance were given leaflets with the following text:
‘11 Belarusian oppositionists have been sentenced to corrective labor at the place of their permanent job for participation in a peaceful protest rally in January 2008. Alexander Barazenka, Aliaksei Bondar, Ales Charnyshou, Maxim Dashuk, Artsiom Dubski, Mikhail Kryvau, Mikhail Pashkevich, Ales Straltsou, Mikhail Subach, Tatsiana Tsishkevich and Pavel Vinahradau are in fact under house arrest just for public expression of their disagreement to the policy of the regime. We demand that the political prisoners be released the crackdown of youth be stopped! One’s house mustn’t be a prison!’
