All Malady Front activists released without charges after Saturday’s arrest

All members of the unregistered opposition youth group Malady Front arrested near Minsk on Saturday were released without charges later that day.

The 31 activists were holding a meeting of the organization’s Central Council in a village house a dozen kilometers outside Minsk when police officers burst the door in. All of the youths were bundled into police vehicles and brought to the Minsk district police department.

As Pavel Nozdra, one of the activists, told BelaPAN, each of the youths was interviewed by police officers. “They said that they had received a report that the house in the Minsk district where we were meeting was to be set on fire,” Mr. Nozdra said. “The police officers said that they had had to rush to the scene and break the house’s door to prevent us from burning ourselves alive. But I had an impression that they were ashamed of the nonsense that they were forced to talk.”

Malady Front has been recently registered in the Czech Republic after making five failed attempts to obtain registration with the Belarusian justice ministry.

The absence of legal status has allowed Belarusian authorities to prosecute many of its members under an article of the Criminal Code that penalizes “acting on behalf of an unregistered organization.”