Anatol Lyabedzka under surveillance

Illegal surveillance and wiretapping have become common things in Belarus.

Leader of the United Civil Party Anatol Lyabedzka found himself under surveillance.

“All meeting arranged on the phone are held under close control of people in mufti,” Anatol Lyabedzka said in an interview to “Narodnaya Volya”. “I do not know for what agency they work, but it is not so important. For example, I had a meeting with Viktar Karniyenka in a café today. At a set time, two well-built young men sat at a table next to mine.

After the meeting, one of them was following me. He did not even try to hide it. These strong guys had better go to work at a construction site, carry bricks. They would be useful there.”

The politician does not plan to file a request to the law-enforcement agencies to ask if special investigative work is legal.

“If I demanded the prosecutor’s office to figure out if surveillance is authorized, I think they would pretend how much they are surprised, that’s all,” Anatol Lyabedzka said.

Human rights activists note that illegal surveillance and tapping have become common things in Belarus. In particular, it was found out at the trial over Uladzimir Nyaklyaeu that wiretapping politician’s phones was authorized by the General Prosecutor’s Office, but there is no such person to issue an approval. Presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, sentenced to five year’s imprisonment, said at the trial his phone had been tapped since August 2010. Dzmitry Bandarenka, sentenced to 2 years, was angry to know his telephone had been tapped since September 22. Both politicians and their lawyers regard wiretapping as illegal. There has been no reaction to their statements so far.