Searches and interrogations continue

At 12 a.m. on 31 January KGB officers paid a visit to an activist of the Student Council (Studrada) Ales Krot. Only his sister was at home at the time. They confiscated a computer, 14 CDs, 2 flash cards and 4 diskettes. Short before this the KGB also searched the apartments of two other activists of Student Council, Mikhas Matskevich and Mikhas Matusevich.

On 31 January Andrei Makhunou, an officer of the Mahiliou Region KGB Department, interrogated an activist of the Mahiliou region organization of the Belarusian Popular Front Zmitser Salauyou concerning the events of 19 December 2010 in Minsk.

'The investigator asked me whether I saw those who were smashing r the window and whether I knew any of them. I answered that I didn't see and didn't know such people and that nobody called to break the windows,' commented Salauyou.

The investigator also asked him about a poem by a classic of the Belarusian literature, Yanka Kupala, which was discovered on Salauyou's computer as a result of the search that had been held in his apartment on 15 January. He asked 'who prepared this document and who it belonged to'.

At 7 a.m. on 1 February officers of law-enforcement agencies entered the apartment of Zmitser Drozd, an activist of the electoral team of Andrei Sannikau and guarded him for an interrogation at the Minsk City Investigative Department.

At about 1 p.m. KGB officers phoned to an activist of the youth wing of the Belarusian Popular Front Anton Koipish. They told him they had a warrant for searching his apartment. The activist managed to inform his mother about it.

Anton Koipish is known as a figurant of the 'process of 14'. In 2008 he was drawn to criminal responsibility for participation in an action of protest held by Minsk entrepreneurs.

In the evening of 31 January the apartment the parents of an activist of the European Belarus was searched for about two hours. The police tried to convince his mother that he was a ‘criminal’, saying that he had been breaking the door of the House of the Parliament, and it could be seen on video. Kazak’s mother said that she had met with the state attorney on Friday evening. The woman refused from the attorney’s services, after which the latter told her that he wouldn’t be allowed to pass food parcels and she wouldn’t be able to maintain any contacts with the son in this case.

On 1 February Siarhei’s mother met with an attorney who was provided by human rights defenders. Bear in mind that Siarhei Kazakou was arrested on 27 January and placed to the investigative department in Valadarski Street, where he is still kept.

KGB officers also paid a visit to the apartment where an activist of the Young Front Hanna Sharuba lived together with her grandmother. The first search took place in the apartment of Hanna’s parents when she was serving the 10-day arrest to which she had been sentenced for participation in the protest action of 19 December. The search was conducted by A.Markouski – an investigation-criminalist of the Minsk and Minsk region KGB department, and two other officers – V.Faustovich and A.Kostsikau. They confiscated the laptop that belonged to Hanna’s sister. According to Hanna, she tried to prove that the laptop didn’t belong to her, but it didn’t stop the KGB officers.

A Mahiliou activist of the civil campaign Nash Dom Krystsina Shatsikava was interrogated at the Mahiliou Region KGB Department for about three hours. The interrogation was conducted by authorized operations officer A.Roshchyn.

Khrystsina Shatsikava had been detained on 19 December at about 11.30 p.m., after the dispersal of the protest action, in the arc under which one can proceed from Leninhradskaya Street to Nezalezhnastsi Street. Krystsina and her friends were trying to defend people from the police clear-up. She was beaten by the riot police in the yard of the Kastrychnitski District Police Department, as a result of which she was hospitalized because of internal bleeding. On 31 December she was punished with 1,050,000 rubles (about $350) fine for participation in the protest action.