Valeriya Krauchanka: Police was more interested in leaflets of Sannikov than attack

A criminal action has been initiated for attack on an activist of Andrei Sannikov’s headquarters.

A criminal case has been initiated by the police department of Pershamajski district of Minsk on charges relating Article 339 of the Criminal Code “Hooliganism”, “European Belarus” website reports.

At about 5.30 p.m. Valeryja Krauchanka was handing out informational materials about the time of the televised address of the presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, when an unknown came up to her. He hit the girl in the face several times, and kicked her in the abdomen. After people ran up to her from the nearby bus-stop and came to the defence, the attacker escaped.

After that Krauchanka sought medical assistance in a hospital. Doctors recorded that she had soft tissue and right ear bruises. He was picked up by policemen and taken to the police department of Pershamajski district of Minsk. She wrote a statement about the attack.

Now Valeriya Krauchanka feels alright, but she has headache.

“He was a man of about 50, he was shouting in “trasyanka” (Russian-Belarusian mixed language), that our candidate does not have a right to inform about himself, he snatched our materials, hit me in the face several times. When a bus arrived, people ran out, they came to our defence, he ran away, shouting that he would go around Uruchcha district and tear off all informational materials about Sannikov.

I was questioned in the police department, and I gave a description of the assaulter. Tomorrow I will take part in medicolegal investigation, and I will have to find him among pictures of former criminals. In general, policemen’s attitude was polite, but it was nit clear why most questions concerned what kind of information was disseminated by us, where, and whether it contained calls for change of the current regime, and not the attack itself,” Valeriya Krauchanka said to the press-service of “European Belarus.”