Aleh Volchak: If earlier Belarusians had been threatened by “dead rats”, now – by “incendiaries”

Ten people were detained on suspicion of their involvement in “extremist arsons”.

As “Belarusian Partisan” writes, among them are anarchists and a representative of the unregistered Party of Freedom Siarhei Papou, a member of the “Right Alliance” Ihar Chapiha. Tatsiana Semyanishchava detained on September, 7, as her friends say, cut her hands with an office knife during the interrogation.

Tatsiana Semyanishchava was detained on September, 6 for the first time, she was interrogated, searched and set free. And on September, 7 the detention was repeated. She was invited to come in the morning and take her flash card, which had been confiscated, and a hard disk, they said, would be returned later. Tatsiana came. She was interrogated again and in the course of the interrogation she was accused of being the person responsible for organizing attempts of arson of the Russian Embassy on August, 30.

It is known for sure, that Tanya cut her hands with an office knife – such things do not happen in the result of a good attitude. An ambulance dressed her wounds, rendered assistance, after that Tatsiana Semyanishchava continued to be interrogated – till late night.

One of the detainees – an environmentalist Uladzimir Valodzin, a local historian, a connoisseur of Belarusian old times and an antagonist of the atomic power station which Lukashenka is planning to build in the Republic despite of the Chernobyl heritage. Valodzin is accused of being involved in the arson of the “Belarus Bank” building on May, 1 of this year. One tries to accuse the seven detained anarchists, abducted by agencies on September, 3, of the same. Apparently, the Russian Embassy “can’t stick with them”, so, one should stick at least something to them...

Tanya Semyanishchava and Valodzya Valodzin are arrested minimum for three days, and then the term can be prolonged, as it was already done with other activists last week.

The situation with the detention of “extremist incendiaries” is commented by Aleh Volchak, head of Human Rights Center “Legal Assistance to Citizens”.

- The fact that strange events start to be going on in Belarus alerts me. As soon as the election starts, one starts threatening the population. If in 2006 we were threatened by “dead rats”, nowadays – by “extremist- incendiaries”. Everyday we see in the news: an incendiary has been detained, later one more incendiary has been detained, and so on. And as it turns out, there were a lot of arsons, but they were out of public attention. The hunt for incendiaries has started in the country.