Opposition activists protest outside KGB building in Minsk, organizers charged
Protest staged outside the KGB building in Minsk on 29 October 2015. Photo: nn.by.
According to various estimates, between 100 and 150 people, gathered yesterday outside the KGB building in Minsk to stage a protest called “Chain of Memory” in honor of over 100 Belarusian cultural figures executed on the day in 1937.
The protesters lit candles and stretched into a long chain along Niezaliežnasci Avenue.
October 29 is called the black date of the Belarusian culture. On the night of 29 to 30 October 1937, over a hundred representatives of the national intelligentsia were killed in the NKVD building in Minsk. Among them were writers, poets, scientists, public and political figures, and journalists. Their place of burial is still unknown.
The protest was announced by former political prisoner Mikalai Statkevich, who invited people to “form a chain of remembrance for the victims of Stalinism carrying candles in their hands and to remind the executioners’ descendants about responsibility for the crime.”
Police officers in civilian clothes did not interfere with the protest. However, the organizers, Mikalai Statkevich, Uladzimir Niakliayeu, Anatol Lyabedzka and Maksim Viniarski, faced charges of administrative offenses.
