Vyachaslau Siuchyk sentenced to 10 days of arrest for photo competition

On June 4 Judge of Minsk region Vyachaslau Tulejka sentenced the chairman of the “Memorial” branch of the Belarusian Voluntary Society of History and Culture Monuments Protection Vyachaslau Siuchyk to 10 days of administrative arrest.

The politician was charged with violation of the Article 23.34 of the Administrative Code (violation of the order of staging and carrying out mass events or picketing).

Siuchyk was charged with participation in an unsanctioned event. It was an announcement of results of competition held by Radio Svaboda (Radio Liberty Belarusian service) (“My picture – My Kurapaty”) in Kurapaty on June 3.

Minsk police detained V. Siuchyk in Kurapaty on the eve of the memorial ceremony dedicated to Stalinism victims connected with the 20th anniversary of the date when the tragedy was revealed to the world. An unknown in mufti who presented himself as Hryb, a deputy head of the police department, pledged honour of an officer that Siuchyk would be taken back to the memorial place. However that didn’t happen. The politician spent the night in the remand prison.

As said by the deputy chairman of the “Memorial” section Uladzimer Ramanouski, the arrest of V. Siuchyk shows that the system “repeats technologies of reprisals with people which took place 70 years ago”.

On April 23 V. Siuchyk was sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest by the court of Staryja Darohi district Minsk region for violation of Article 23.34 of the Administrative Code. The verdict was connected with the events of April 19, when under initiative of the memorial section of the Monuments Protection Voluntary Society a memorial cross was set up. Siuchyk took part in setting up a memorial cross in the Drazhna village (Starya Darohi district) in the memory of 25 civilians slaughtered by partisans 15 April 1943. The six-pointed cross of St Euphrosyne of Polatsk, a patron saint of Belarus, was set up near the catholic cemetery of the village, a part of which was burnt down, whose many inhabitants were killed or burnt alive in their houses by the partisans. The names of the killed people were written on a memorial board, affixed to the cross. The eyewitnesses of the tragedy were present at the ceremony. After some days according to a decision of the local administration the memorial cross was demounted and moved to the territory near a church in Zaluzha village some kilometres from Drazhna.