Leanid Sudalenka: We Hope For International Solidarity

The human rights defender calls to support the independent trade union REP.

On January 30, the investigation in Brahin interrogated member of the REP trade union Uladzimir Tserametski as a witness. The investigators are interested in everything related to the identity of the leader of the trade union Henadz Fiadynich - his attitude towards him, his instructions, including the ones abroad, payment of professional fees, in a word - money. The trade union’s legal inspector Leanid Sudalenka claims that there is nothing about law in the trade union's case, only politics.

He regards the events as an unlawful interference with the activities of the independent trade union (association), which should not go unpunished.

- Obviously, the authorities put the cart ahead of the horse again. They opened a criminal case out of nothing, conducted searches, and brought a serious charge over alleged tax evasion, and there was no evidence! The trade union’s accountant Ihar Komlik was released from jail. In the actual fact, if there was law in this case, the criminal prosecution should have been stopped. And the trade union should have been compensated moral and material damage, the trade union lawyer believes.

- Instead, the case is prolonged and will be prolonged until its authors understand that it is cheaper to stop the harassment of the independent trade union because the economic costs are too high in the first place. Inside the country, there is no such resource with which the government could sit down at the negotiating table on this matter. There is certain hope for the international trade union movement, I hope this political issue will not be hushed up in Europe,” – Leanid Sudalenka said.

He also noted that in any forms of a direct “dialogue with the Belarusian authorities, European politicians should prioritize the topic of stopping interference in the activities of independent trade unions in Belarus. It is very important that there is an appropriate international response to the events, otherwise, according to the lawyer, after the interrogations of the trade union members they will start questioning their relatives, as the criminal case can be prolonged indefinitely, according to the law.

Important to note, over 100 ordinary members of the trade union were summoned for interrogation as witnesses only in January in the Homel region. There is information about the interrogation of the trade union activists in other regions of the country. The investigators obtained the lists of trade unionists during the searches at the office of the trade union.