Hrodna region: authorities continue haunting participants of insurgents' commemoration

The police continue looking for participants of the commemorative action in honor of the anti-Russian insurgents of 1863-1864, held on 27 October 2012 in the Svislach district.

It's worth reminding that three of the action participants were detained and sentenced to arrest for the use of national symbols. Four people were sentenced to fines.

Several days ago, on 4 December, charges were also presented to the head of the Hrodna city branch of the Belarusian Popular Front party Vadzim Saranchukou and a member of its council Iryna Danilouskaya. Most probably, soon the both of them will be tried at the Svislach District Court.

“The Belarusian civil society is going to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the national uprising in 2013. Most probably, the authorities want to prevent a massive celebration. The events around the Insurgents' Day in Sviaslach are legally absurd: according to the logic of the authorities, citizens have no right to come an lay flowers to monuments. It is an absolutely lawless adverse discrimination. The situation looks even worse in the moral and political dimension – in 1863 the Belarusian territory was under the Russian occupation, whereas now we have a formally independent Republic of Belarus, in which the titular nation, Belarusian, is most persecuted,” commented a human rights defender Viktar Sazonau.