BRSM Members With Batons Patrol Hrodna Streets

A journalist met Lukamol (Lukashenka's Komsomol – edt.) members in camouflage with batons in Hrodna on February 23.

The guys introduced themselves as fighters of the Youth Law Enforcement Movement (MOOP). They told that they were helping the police, the publication reports.

The first secretary of the Hrodna Regional Committee of the Belarusian Republican Youth Union Pavel Markhaliuk has told Hrodna.life that the guys who came out with batons showed their own initiative. As it turned out, the MOOP is a part of the BRSM structure.

– The guys should not walk around the city with batons, they are not given them, it was their personal initiative, – Pavel Markhaluk said. – The young guys misunderstood how to express their participation in law enforcement units properly. We will work with them and explain everything carefully.

Hrodna human rights activist Uladzimir Hilmanovich believes that having batons and their use by MOOP representatives is illegal.

– The BRSM, as a public organization that created these MOOPs, has nothing to do with the internal affairs agencies and the internal troops. Therefore, the carrying of such batons, and the more their use is illegal. The city prosecutor’s office must carry out a check on the fact of such patrolling, – the human rights activist believes.