Shklou: observer visited by police

In the morning of 9 November the police paid a visit to the apartment of the observer at the Shklou District Election Commission Mikhail Kucharenka. They were trying to figure out why Mikhail Kucharenka and other publica activists from the Shklou district were collecting signatures against the transfer of local water bodies to private entrepreneurs this summer.

’The Local residents are very concerned about this issue since they have almost nowhere to go to relax with a fishing rod, and have to pay money for it. We collected more than three hundred signatures under the petition and then sent it to different authorities: prosecutors, the State Control Committee, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, etc. All of them answered that the rulings of the Shklou DEC were lawful and didn’t violate the law,’ - says Mikhail Kucharenka.

The police tried to find out where the activist had learned about the facts that had been drawn in the address, who helped him collect signatures and had supplied him with the necessary information.

’They stayed in my apartment for about an hour and drew up a report. I refused to answer most of their questions, because I had the impression that the police were not interested in violations of the law during the transfer of water in the lease, but why we had decided to collect signatures against the decisions of the Shklou District Executive Committee concerning the transfer of water reservoirs in the rent and who helped us. Such actions of the Shklou police can also be aimed at pressurizing me as an observer,’ – said M. Kucharenka.

Bear in mind that the observer Mikhail Kucharenka submitted to the Shklou District Executive Committee a series of protests against violations that in his opinion were committed by members of the campaign team of Aliaksandr Lukashenka while collecting signatures for his nomination.

Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections