New repressions against opposition: KGB uses law on extremism

Today, on September 18, a journalist Andrzej Pisalnik, an activist of the United Democratic Party Uladzimir Laryn, young activists Yauhen Skarabutan and Alyaksei Trubkin, and a human rights activist Valery Shchukin were summoned to the court of Kastrychnitski district of Hrodna.

Different printed materials were seized from each of them at the Belarusian-Lithuanian border in different time.

A statement to the court had been made by Hrodna regional KGB directorate, which asks to recognize these publications extremist, the UCP website writes.

Among the confiscated materials are CDs of the concert “Solidarity with Belarus”, printed sources “Basics of United Democratic Forces’ strategy”, “Draft resolution of the Democratic Forces Congress”, a bulletin “Free Thought”, and books “Letters from the forest” (by Paval Sevyarynets), and “Accidental President” (by Svyatlana Kalinkina and Paval Sharamet).

“It all reminds a broad action, even an unprecedented one, as I have never heard before such a procedure to be started by the KGB organs. It is possible it is an attempt to create a new scheme of persecution, I do not know,” one of the suspects Andrzej Pisalnik said in an interview to Radio Svaboda.

“The main thing is what consequences these civil proceedings would have. If it would end in destruction of the confiscated materials only, in would be one thing, and if the court would take a different decision, and it would really speak about extremism, it would mean prosecution in the courts,” Andrzej Pisalnik explained.

As we have informed, analogous writs to Hrodna court of Kastrychnitski district have been received by young activist Yauhen Skarabutan from Zelva and the UCP member Uladzimir Laryn from Hrodna last weekend; on Friday September 13 – by student of Bialystok University Alyaksei Trubkin, on Thursday September 12 by a journalist Andrzej Pisalnik.

In the case of Yauhen Skarabutan the court asks to establish facts that the materials confiscated from him, a CD with the concert “Solidarity with Belarus”, a booklet “Basics of the strategy of the United Democratic Forces”, a booklet “Free Thought”, “Draft of the United Democratic Forces Congress’ resolution”, a book by P. Sevyarynets “Letters from the wood”, have extremist contents.

As for Uladzimer Laryn, the court asks to establish the fact that the book “The Accidental President” confiscated from him is extremist contests.

These articles have been confiscated from both Yauhen Skarabuan and Uladzimer Laryn back in 2007, when the activists were on their way back from Poland.

In the end of the year 2006 a personal computer was seized from Alyaksei Trubkin’s apartment, and only now it has become known that files of allegedly “extremist” character had been found in the computer. “graphic and text files on activities of an unregistered youth organisation Young Front, video footage of Nazi Germany, video clips of hooliganism by football fans, video footage of unsanctioned demonstration were found, and so on”.

Books and CDs confiscated from Alyaksei Trubkin were found “extremist” as well. Among “detrimental” was a book “Review of human rights violations in Belarus in 2004”, as it contains “a great number of photo materials on mass unsanctioned protest rallies in the Republic of Belarus, and materials with a call to seize the state power in an unconstitutional way and to organize mass riot”.