Property of ‘For Freedom’ movement distrained

Furniture from the apartment where the leader of For Freedom movement met with his supporters, have been brought away by movers today.

As said by the chief officer of justice of the Pershamaiski court of Minsk, Kiryl Siniakevich, under the decision of the court of Savetski district, the property was distrained and is to be confiscated. He explained that the decision had been adopted by the court, when a verdict had been passed to the tenant of that flat, Alexander Pyzhkou, who had been sentenced to 5 years of imprisonment for large-scale swindling.

In his turn, Milinkevich told to journalists that ‘the property confiscated from the flat today belongs to For Freedom movement. ‘I do not have an office in Minsk, but I have offices in Hrodna and a number of other cities of Belarus. I do not even have a flat in Minsk, I am renting one,’ Milinkevich said.

In an interview to the Charter’97 press-centre an assistant of For Freedom movement leader, Alexander Kavalets, who rents the flat where the headquarters of the organization are situated, called distrainment of the property ‘a political affair’.

‘It is completely unexplainable’, Aliaksei Kavalets said to the Charter’97 press-centre. ‘Our property is seized. It belongs to members of For Freedom movement: there are presents, a table brought by us. It is a purely political action. It is strange that we are not still places to concentration camps.’

Kavalets informed that he was present when the property was distrained, and told to officers of justice that the distrained property didn’t belong to the imprisoned son of the owner of the flat, who hadn’t been living in the flat since 1990.

‘During the previous inquiry it was proved that the property in the flat does not belong to the elder son of the owner of the flat’, Aliaksei Kavalets said. ‘He hasn’t been living here since 1990. And I have been renting this flat since 2002. There are simply no belongings of his in this flat.’

Despite of the fact that in the conditions of the so-called ‘liberalization’ For Freedom movement was registered by the Justice Ministry, the aide to the head of the For Freedom movement states:

‘The actions of the authorities could be characterized in the following way: “we are doing what we please. When we wish, we can register you. And when we want, we can distrain your property.'

Bear in mind that in September 2008, court officers and witnesses came to the office of unregistered at that time For Freedom movement. The court officers said they had some problems with a son of the woman, who lets out the apartment to the For Freedom movement.