Vitsebsk: ex-pretender for president dismissed from work

Siarhei Ryzhou is dismissed from the position of the head of the foreign economic relations department of the fruit and vegetable combine Nouka. He states that he started receiving warnings about the dismissal after the registration of his campaign team, and his statement about withdrawal from the election on 21 October didn’t influence the situation.

According to Mr. Ryzhou, the official reason for his dismissal is absence from work. The administration accused him of being out of office since 9 till 12 a.m. on 4 October. He says that in the morning of 4 October he felt bad and called a doctor. However, he was told to come to the polyclinic for medical examination. At 12 a.m. he had to go to the trial of the human rights defender Pavel Levinau, as a witness. After the trial he went for the medical examination, received the confirming document and presented it to the Nouka administration together with the writ to the court.

’As far as I wasn’t freed from work at 9-12 a.m., the head of the combine considered it as truancy. I didn’t manage to convince him that the enterprise was out of the city and I was physically unable to get there after a visit to the doctor and then appear at court at 12 a.m. The administration of the combine proposed me to compose a statement about retirement on my own will, which I refused to do,’ commented Mr. Ryzhou.

According to him, the former head of his campaign team Danil Hittsovich (who worked as a specialist of the sector of foreign economic relations at the Nouka combine) was made to write such application.

Mr. Ryzhou emphasizes that it was the pressurization on members of his electoral team that made him refuse to run for president. As Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections have already informed, Siarhei Ryzhou said that his campaign team wouldn’t be able to collect the necessary number of signatures for his registration as a candidate for president during the time left due to the absence of sufficient financing of the campaign, and the unfavorable political situation made his adherents withdraw from the team.

Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections