Communists file suit against Young Front

They demand Young Front activists to pay moral and material compensation for an egg attack on the monument to Lenin.

Young Front member Raman Vasilyeu came to the flat rented by several organization activists ahead of  Orthodox Easter. The doors to the flat were opened, everything was turned upside down in the room. Banners, white-red-white flags and Young Front activist Pavel Syarhei disappeared from the flat.

The young man appeared in the evening and said what had happened earlier, the Young Front press service reports.

Pavel Syarhei heard a door bell on April 13. He opened the door and saw five men in mufti, one of whom said he was a district police officer. The men burst into the flat and began to tear off posters and flags. They did not have a search warrant and did not make a search report. They then handcuffed the guy and took him to court trial in connection with a civil suit filed against Young Front activists by communists.

Participants of a gathering near the monument to Lenin on November 7, 2011, filed a suit against Young Front members Pavel Syarhei, Raman Vasilyeu and Mikhail Musski. The communists accused the young men of causing moral and material damage. According to them, throwing eggs at the monument of Lenin was denigration of their honour and dignity. They claim the eggs smeared their coats that caused material damage.

Communist Mikalai Yushchanka asks the court to collect 900,000 rubles of moral compensation and 600,000 rubles of material compensation from the Young Front activists. Mikalai Valovich wants 2.5mn and 2mn rubles for the moral damage and the spoiled coat respectively.

The communists presented their claims at the first trial, but Young Front member Pavel Syarhei and a lawyer filed a motion to postpone the trial to have time to study the demands of the communists and prepare arguments for defence. Mikhail Musski, was serving an administrative arrest in a detention centre, was also guarded to the court.

“In my view, this process is an excellent opportunity to continue public trial over communism, a campaign launched by Young Front in 2008. We will invite historians and researches specializing in the “bloody terror” period, relatives of the victims of Stalin's repression and  priests to the next trial. Let communists look into the eyes of the people, whose family suffered due to their associates in the bloody ideology,” Anastasia Palazhanka, the deputy head of Young Front, says.

The next trial is to begin in the court of the Maskouski district of Minsk at 9 am on May 3.