Spontaneous protest in Minsk: riot policemen deployed against pensioners

Having leanrt about a possible picket of tenants of a house, the authorities sent riot policemen and special equipment.

Learning about a possible picket of tenants of a house, the authorities sent riot policemen and special equipment. As a result, pensioners staged a meeting inside the staircase.

Dwellers of the house №109 in Independence Avenue demand major repairs for their house. The authorities agree, but under a condition that three storeys are to be added to their house, Radio Svaboda informs.

Today morning a picket with 20 participants was held in the staircase of the three-storeyed building in the main street of the Belarusian capital. Participants were standing in the staircase holding a banner: “The house is 63 years old. We demand major repairs. Major repairs without adding storeys.”

Journalists talked to Viktar Yanchurevich, the head of the civil initiative “Europerspektiva”, which helps Minsk citizens to defend their interests, offers consultations on the issues of appeals to government agencies.

- What is the reason of the picket?

- For many years citizens are fighting against the local administration which refuses to carry out capital repairs without adding mezzanine floors. It is a three-storey building, and the authorities want to build up three more floors. Dwellers are against, they have visited all possible agencies, and have not found understanding, and now they are ready for harsher actions in order to attract attention of the community to the problem.

- But why the dwellers of the house are against mezzanine floors?

- First of all, for many years they had been paying charges for major repairs. Under the law, repairs are to be held without adding additional floors. The administration finds that it is economically impracticable to make repairs without adding storeys, as the house is small, and repairs are to cost lots of money. Secondly, it is planned to build up the storeys without moving dwellers. It means that the house will be unroofed, walls will be reinforced. The house will be uncomfortable, dirty and simply dangerous to live in in this period.

- Why the picket was held in the staircase, and not in the street?

- Dwellers certainly planned to gather in the street, in order to make a public address to mass media. But local authorities had learnt about that, and sent there policemen, policemen in mufti, riot policemen, who were on duty near a metro station next to the house, as well as employees of a Housing Maintenance Service with a platform, for them to remove a banner urgently, in case it would be hanged from the roof. As a result, dwellers of the house decided to play safe and hold a picket inside the house.