Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu: Conveyor of prosecutions must be stopped

Volha, the wife of Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu, has handed in his statement today.

“I received a document from the Minsk prosecutor’s office saying that criminal case No 110011110141, initiated against me under part 1 of article 342 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, has been sent to the Minsk City Court to lay the venue.

The investigation of the case has been completed. No more need to hide something because of “secrecy”. I was explained in an attachment to the document that under article 266 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Belarus I must sent all my complaints and motions to the Minsk City Court. This is what I am doing.

Charges against me under part 1 of article 342 “preparing group actions that breach public order” threat with up to 3 years in prison. In comparison with the charge under parts 1 and 2 of article 293, having been brought against me earlier, it is much softer. The maximum term of imprisonment is five times less. I might have said “thank you for mercy”, if the Order on sending the case to a prosecutor and further sending to court had not stated that the aim of my participating in “the group actions that breach public order” and my running in the Belarusian presidential elections was “imposing economic and political sanctions by the European Union, the USA, and the Russian Federation”.

Under no conditions, for no “softer charges” can I admit this charge and do not admit it. Causes and effects are mixed up here. The mentioned sanctions (if they can be called such) were imposed not due to mass riot (there was no mass riot). They were imposed due to mass beating of peaceful citizens by subdivisions of the law-enforcement agencies and due to mass arrests, to which I bear no relation. It was not me who ordered to beat people and arrest them.

I was almost killed. What was my guilt?

In spite of my requests and demands of my lawyers to investigate the attempt on my life on December 19, 2010, at 7:20 pm, when I had a status of a Belarusian presidential candidate, which under the law guaranteed my immunity, this has been made in neither criminal case No 10011110362 nor in separated from it criminal case No 1101111014. Persons guilty in the life attempt have not been found and punished. They can repeat it. Thus, basic constitutional guarantees of the state to defend my life are violated, which makes me speak out on the merits of the charge.

I ran in the presidential elections not with the aims, trumped-up in the charge, by with the only aim: to become President of the Republic of Belarus. This is not a crime.

In order to make the elections democratic, free and fair, I carried out a civil campaign titled “Tell the Truth”, which was morally and financially sponsored by the European democratic society. This, and the rest things in this totally cooked-up charges, is not a crime, too. But even this “fantasy” looks modest in comparison with the general concept of the charge in the spirit of Stalin’s times, when Belarusian poets were depicted as enemies of the Belarusian people, as Polish and German spies! This insults me as a human being, as a poet, whose every action made was made for Belarus.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t achieve democratic elections. According to appeals by the democratic candidates submitted to the Central Election Commission, and reports by short-term OSCE and PA OSCE observers and by long-term OSCE/ODIHR observation mission, the Belarusian presidential elections were neither free nor fair. They were falsified. This is a crime. To make it public, I, being then a presidential candidate, called on my supporters to gather in Minsk on October Square, a place where people traditionally come on election days (it was so in 2001 and 2006). The right of freedom of assembly, demonstrations and rallies is guaranteed to citizens by the Constitution of Belarus. This right cannot be cancelled by orders of governmental agencies, moreover one cannot forbid to use this constitutional right in the days that determine future of the state and people.

Besides the right the Constitution guarantees me, I am protected from prosecution for calling people on Square under article 36 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus. My actions fully fall within this article. By means of a smaller offence (an administrative offence: taking part in an unauthorized event) I tried to prevent a more serious offence (a criminal one: recognition of unfair elections fair). I and other presidential candidates were going to hold a demonstration and then to adopt a resolution on non-recognition of unfair elections and demanding new, fair elections. The criminal case does not contain any proofs that I planned anything else. We see a substitution of notions here: “non-recognition of elections” is replaced by “demanding sanctions”, which is a different thing. This is performance of the authorities’ order to prosecute the alternative presidential candidates not for the events on the Square (broken glass and blocked traffic), but for what is happening in the country (broken economy and blocked development of the society). This is an attempt (which is especially evident after the metro blast) to lay the blame for worsening living standards from the authorities on the opposition. It is like in Stalin’s times: enemies are guilty, fifty thousand of “rogues and cast-offs”, who came to the Square.

I made public and written statements asking the Minister of Internal Affairs and the KGB head to assist in keeping public order on the Square not to create danger for people. But neither me, a presidential candidate, nor the people accompanying me, were defended when we were moving to the Square. People in uniform without ID badges attacked a column of Tell the Truth campaign in Kalektarnaya Street.

Why did they attack? I ask this question not as a victim having the right to hear an answer. It is a key question to understand what really happened on the voting day at the Belarusian presidential elections.

In the course of the electoral campaign, I was repeating the same words, as a prayer: “There cannot be irreconcilable confrontation in the Belarusian society! We have reached the today’s situation by means of elections and we should come out of it by means of elections, too.” This was my position, but someone did not like a peaceful demonstration on the Square. Maybe this is a reason for my “neutralization”. If it is not so, they need to prove it is not so. If reasons are other, they need figure them out. It is a real, not a farfetched crime. A provocation became a trigger, a detonator of an explosion of violence on the Square. Evidence in the criminal case proves it. For example, evidence by head of Fair World party Kalyakin, “Most of the people gathered on Independence Square, about two thirds of them, came their because they were angry at beating of Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu.” As witnesses say, after this provocation the Square changed in quality and quantity: it became more crowded, more active, less controllable. Wasn’t it the aim that organizers of the attack on the column of Tell the Truth civil campaign in Kalektarnaya Street were pursuing?

If the provocation was planned beforehand and if it involved the forces able to organize a special group, which uses special measures to “neutralize” a Belarusian presidential candidate, one can hardly state that I would have prevented the events that lead to evidently negative consequences, both political and economic. However, I would have done my best to prevent them. The only thing I may be prosecuted for, is that I was not able to appear on the Square. In this case, those who did not allowed me to go to the Square must be tried in court.

We are citizens of our country first, and poets or presidents, judges or defendants next. We all understand: those who came to the Square on December 19 to express their dissent with unfairness and lack of freedom are not criminals, but the best sons and daughters of Belarus, who demonstrated their civil courage. Descendants will be thankful to them.

In the nearest days, new innocent persons can be added to the list of unfairly imprisoned people: Zmitser Bandarenka, Andrei Sannikov, Mikalai Statkevich and others… Everyone understands that the conveyor of prosecution must be stopped. To stop its rotating wheels, energy of evil and hatred, which sudden explosion was not less strong as a bomb blast at the Oktyabrskaya metro station, must be cut off. For those who put it into operation and works with it, it will be difficult to stop it. Another man is needed to come and say, “Look, it’s easy! The stop button is over there!” and push it. It can be done by court. The Minsk City Court. I hope judges have enough civil courage to do this.

I ask the Minsk City Court to admit the criminal case against me politically motivated and close it due to absence of elements of crime in my actions, as well as in the actions of other presidential candidates and all demonstrators on the Square, who have been prosecuted. Only this decision can lead to harmony among ourselves and our neighbours.

This will finally happen. I just offer not to lose time.

21.04.2011 Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu”