Lukashists Raided the Founding Conference of the League of Student Associations

Dozens of people were detained.

The founding conference of the League of Student Associations was held in the Minsk business club Imaguru. Yesterday they were supposed to elect the chairman of the student trade union, Radio Svaboda informs.

However, security officials in masks appeared at the event, and dozens of student activists were detained.

They also detained journalist Artsiom Liava, who was preparing material from the event. Together with the equipment, he was taken to the police department but later released, the BAJ reports.

Volunteers @spiski_okrestina and the Studentskaya Dumka telegram channel published lists of detainees.

Tatstsiana Marynich, the founder of the Imaguru Business Club, said on Facebook that after the invasion of the security forces, employees and coworkers were unable to leave the premises or enter the building. The conference participants were taken out of the building, put in paddy wagons, and driven. Among the detainees, there is an employee of Imaguru.

“We do not understand when and how it will end. We regard the incident as a seizure by force, which does not have any legal basis. This is a new wave of repressions, Maski-Show in offices, which aims to intimidate and eliminate all active and free-thinking people,” wrote Tatstsiana Marynich.

The independent trade union of the League of Student Associations includes representatives of the initiatives of students of seven universities: Belarusian State University (BSU), Belarusian National Technical University (BNTU), Belarusian State Pedagogical University named after Maxim Tank (BSPU), Belarusian State Medical University (BSMU), Belarusian State Academy of Arts (BSAI) ), The Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts (BSUKI), and the Belarusian State Academy of Music (BSAM).

At the founding conference, it was planned to hold elections for leadership, adopt action programs, discuss plans for the organization's work, and listen to the leaders of local student organizations.