Police expel protesters from Babruisk city administration

A police colonel was aggressive, grabbed workers by their clothes and tried to pushed them out of the building.

Workers of the plant of tractor parts and units began on November 5. They protest against the dismissals, which they explain with their membership in the Belarusian Free trade Union, Salidarnasts reports.

Mikalai Zhybul, Aleh Shauchenka, Aliaksandr Varankin and Aliaksandr Hramyka came to the Babruisk city administration on the first day of their hunger strike.

“The workers stationed themselves in the lobby on the fourth floor,” Mikail Kavalkou, the leader of the trade union primary organisation at the plant of tractor parts and units, says. “Police colonel Siarhei Rcyshkou came to them. He wrote down their passport details and said he would take them all to the employment centre.” Mikhail Kavalkou says the police officer was aggressive. He graииed the workers by their clothes and tried to pushed them out of the building. The workers had to leave the administration building.

“We cannot grab him by his clothes, otherwise they can accuse us of resisting a police officer,” Mikhail Kavalkou explained.

He is confident that the policeman was called by the city administration staff.

“We are in a car near the city administration. We plan to enter the building again,” he says.

Four members of the Free Trade Union (Mikalai Zhybul, Aleh Shauchenka. Aliaksandr Varankin and Aliaksandr Hramyka) took a decision to go on a hunger strike as they didn't receive an answer to their letter to Lukashenka's administration.

They wrote in the letter that plant director Aliksandr Ahranovich dismissed experienced workers, harassed them due to their membership in the Free Trade Union and thus undermined the state's economy.

Their appeal was resent to MAZ group of companies. The workers took the answer as a formal reply, because the Babruisk-based plant is not a subsidiary of MAZ (Minsk Tractor Plant), but a legally independent plant. They decided to hold a hunger strike until the authorities hear them.

This is a howl of despair,” workers say.