Andrei Sharenda: No More Silence

Only open protest and clear demands can change the situation.

On October 14, a traditional protest was held in Brest against the construction of a battery plant. A few dozen people came there to participate. Brest residents have been fighting for a long time against the harmful production that may appear in their city. What makes people go to the streets every Sunday? Charter97.org asked Andrei Sharenda, coordinator of the European Belarus civil campaign and representative of the Belarusian National Congress in Brest:

- Recently, we keep on hearing about the harmful enterprises that appear at the territory of our country. Why do the authorities allow it?

- The answer is very simple. Lukashenka wants by any means to attract at least some investment. It is for this reason that there are harmful enterprises and backward plants. Throughout Europe, they abandoned these enterprises, and we are building them everywhere: Brest, Svetlahorsk, Belaazersk. You see, these technologies are used today in Africa.

No one cares about the people's opinions, their views. Here the question rests only on the material component.

- Is the ecology issue so painful for the Brest residents?

- You see, this is not only a topic of ecology. We can say that the protest, which took place this Sunday, was a new step. Previously, people came without slogans or any demands. Now people realized that this is pointless. Brest residents collected signatures, went to the square, discussed problems associated with the plant. This time we saw a protest. People understood that they could no longer be silent and came out purposefully, knowing that there would be arrests, there would be administrative detentions.

- Why did the authorities react so nervously to the protest? Bloggers Piatrukhin and Kabanau were detained, the BNC leader Mikalai Statkevich received five days of detention...

- This once again shows that the authorities are only concerned about the protests. No collection of signatures or various performances that are not politically motivated have no effect. Only open protest and clear demands can change the situation in the city and the situation in the country.