Labor to Be Paid with Air Soon

Every day brings its news.

Every time the authorities come up with more sophisticated methods to "milk" Belarusians. As a rule, local bureaucrats fulfill orders adopted at the higher level.

Yesterday it became known that rent-bill debtors of the Brest region were listed as troubled families with the prospect of transfer of children to child protective services. At the same time local authorities refer to the order of the Ministry of Education issued in 2007.

Does this mean that rent-bill debts will cause capture of children across the country? Former teacher with many years' experience and Vitsebsk coordinator of the organizing committee for the creation of the Belarusian Christian Democracy Tatstsyana Sevyarynets answers questions of Charter97.org.

- How could you comment onthe initiative of the authorities of the Brest region? Will this practice be adopted by other regions, the Vitsebsk one, for example?

- It's hard to comment on such a cynical practice: to separate families because of common debts to communal and housing authorities. But I think we have to stay strong and fight it in other regions in Belarus as well. After all, everything that goes contrary to the common sense becomes a usual thing here.

I only wonder the way the authority pretends not to notice "the red line" it has crossed. According to it, everyone "should take a shovel and work hard." I only wonder where to work if there is no one because of the economic crisis? Does one need a job to pay for these ill-fated "rent bills"? Doesn't the authority understand that these compulsions and charges only escalate the situation and people start "boiling"? Does the government only pretend that it cannot see obvious things?

Developed countries have a lot of preferential positions that take into account a child in a family. Are Belarusians much richer than Europeans if they do not have any benefits?

- We know it's not true...

- Exactly! The answer is that Belarus is turned into the country for one person and his family. Including higher officials who actively "grunt" at the "august" trough. This "trough" infected them with piggish attitude towards people.

But if they think that people will "swallow" it, they are very wrong. People are fed up with this "holiday" on a single street.

"No money" - this is the authorities' response to the people. At that, half a million of dollars are spent on a questionable monument of princess Volha in Vitsebsk. You'd better give this money to children of these "troubled" families. But the authorities won't do that.. They have a clear and clear task: to take away and divide.

And those who do not want to pay will be turned upside down. And here comes the weakest point in the "rent" issue: fines and no electricity look the lesser problem than the prospect of losing a child. And people have to squirm to pay.

- Payments for "rent bills" will not cover all needs of the regime. What other charges may be imposed to help "a single family" survive in the economic crisis?

- Writers Radishchev and Saltykov-Shchedrin once answered this question. They reliably portrayed the Lukashenka state and its leaders in all its manifestations.

Belarus goes back to the 18th and 19th century at an alarmingly fast pace - the times of serfdom. All attributes are already clear: salaries are paid in kind or are not paid at all; one cannot resign, even if he is not paid; if you lost your job - you still pay a fee or should work it out collecting, for example, stones on a field ... And now families are separated, as it was practiced under serfdom.

The tax on air will be soon introduced. Or what is more common for the authority - coupons for a fixed air breathing. For example, three liters of air for a person per day. And if you do not comply with terms, pay twice. I will not be surprised that the salary is paid soon with air.

Such a perspective is waiting on the Belarusians, if no protests are carried out. I keep saying "people, do not let enslave yourselves! If we do not prove that we're able to protest and fight for our rights, all these ridiculous taxes will be invented and imposed. It's time to resist now.