College Teacher: Where Can Be Harm In KGB’s Interaction With Student?

The Minsk Technological College Administration argues that a “preventive conversation” amid the “elections” is a standard procedure.

On October 25, Minsk State Technological College student Vadzim Babin was summoned to the principal's office. As it turned out, to have a conversation with a KGB officer.

“I think it's all due to the fact that I have taken part in Yuras Hubarevich’s election campaign (the chairman of the movement For Freedom, who participated in the parliamentary elections) I was an observer, and went to Kiev for a marathon, representing the movement,” – Vadzim Babin says in his interview to euroradio.fm.

According to the college student, the KGB employee wanted to know how much he and other team members were paid for their participation in Hubarevich’s election campaign, and even about the Kiev marathon, or rather, how much alcohol the movement members managed to drink during that trip.

At the end of the conversation the officer advised Babin to suspend his membership in the movement For Freedom. He reminded the student about exams in April, and said he would have problems in the event of defiance.

“I study well, my G.P.A. is seven, I do not skip classes. But you know that I have exams pretty soon, and one cannot know everything,” – Vadzim says.

Head of the college mechanical and technical department Alena Mihura is candid: so it was, the KGB officer came and had a conversation with Vadzim Babin. The only thing is that nobody put any pressure on the guy, it was a normal “educational and preventive conversation.”

“He is a good student, not a non-attender – he is a pretty clever guy. But he seems to have chosen a wrong company and wrong people to communicate with. I tried to talk to him, to explain that, living in your state, it’s not nice to spit in the plate from which you eat. You study in a state educational institution, you live in our hostel for a penny, get a scholarship, and at the same time you take some kind of actions against the state! The officer spoke to him in a similar vein: he tried to explain to him that the people with whom he communicates are politically unreliable. And you are a student, so it should not be like that!” – the teacher said.

According to her, the KGB officer visits the college quite often, and there is nothing wrong, if special services are interested in students’ social and political activities.

“He was not accusing of breaking the law, he was trying to find out the reason: for the sake of money or not,” – Alena Mihura says.

According to the teacher, no one is going to expel the guy for his views and political activities. Such suspicions even insult her.

“I'm a mature person, and to descend to some kind of revenge because of somebody has different views?!” – the teacher says.

And she asks a counter-question: “On what basis can a student be expelled, if he studies well and does not skip classes?”