Mikalai Kazlou: They Want To Return Us To Obsolete Times

The entire policy of the “vertukhays” is based on unsuccessful examples from the old past.

Recently, Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Ihar Shunevich has been showing an unprecedented activity. There was an unexpected proposal to employ ex-convicts to agricultural enterprises, which in fact means the creation of labor camps. Labor camps will have to provide places of deprivation of freedom with food.

The Collective Farming Unitary Enterprise "Khutor-Agro" near Svetlahorsk has already been selected as a pilot base for this project, legal documents are being prepared. If the project is recognized as successful, it will be deployed to all the regions.

When Lukashenka complained that he himself had to sew a uniform for the Belarusian hockey players, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs came to help, having offered to shift this duty to prisoners. How can such initiatives be explained, are there any constitutional grounds for this? The website Сharter97.org questioned Lieutenant-Colonel of the police in reserve, Deputy Chairman of the UCP party Mikalai Kazlou:

— Forced labor is prohibited by the Constitution, but the fact is, in our country no one pays attention to it. History teaches us that forced labor is ineffective.

The slave system collapsed for this reason, feudalism, and the Belarusian authorities are trying to return us to some ancient times, when slave labor and serfdom flourished. They want to make everyone work. These initiatives only begin with prisoners, and end with young children.

Let's take the so-called decree on "parasitism" — another attempt to force everyone to work. It puts a person before the choice: either pay the tax to the budget, or work for pennies. Only in this case you are free not to pay. You do not earn anything, but you do not pay anything. This is the form of coercion.

The entire policy of our country is built on examples from the obsolete past. Shunevich, as a person who considers it an honor to wear the uniform of the NKVD, enjoys the legacy of this organization with pleasure: GULAGs, the labor of prisoners. His dream is to divide the country into vertukhays and prisoners. The entire pro-government vertical is made of vertukhays, including Shunevich, and we — who knows. It does not fit in my head. When the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who should stand for the protection of the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens, including prisoners, comes up with such initiatives — this shows his desire to lick his master's boots. For a man of the 21st century, such desires are unnatural.