Human rights defender Siarhei Rusetski detained on the Ukrainian border

On 5 December the Belarusian border guards headed by major S.Soika detained Siarhei Rusetski, a human rights defender from Biaroza at the frontier point Khatsislau. At first they checked his passport for a long time. Then they took it away and brought it to their stationery device. After this the human rights defender was set down his train.

The border guards examined Rusetski’s belongings for about 1.5 hours and composed an act of customs examination on its results. They were most interested in finding how much foreign currency he had with him (he had only $10) and whether he wasn’t trafficking any printed production.

The border guards were reading the latest issues of Nasha Niva and Narodnaya Volia for quite a long time and couldn’t believe that such ‘sedition’ is issued officially in Belarus because they had never seen such newspapers at the newsstands. Mr. Rusetski, in his turn, proposed them to subscribe to the newspapers and get them by mail or read them on the web. They objected that it would be too dangerous to read the internet versions, because it is quite easy to watch one’s actions there. They proposed him to leave the newspapers to them, but the activist answered that he hadn’t read them yet. Then they said they would compose a confiscation report, but later refused from this idea.

As far as the next train to Brest arrived only in 3.5 hours, Siarzhuk Rusetski got home not at 10 p.m. on Sunday, but on Monday morning.

Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections