Election Campaign Snap-Shots: Searches and Detentions…

29.09.2004.

On 28 September Orsha police searched the headquarters of UCP parliamentary candidate Henadz Ananyew. The police officers failed to present the search warrant. The incident took place in the absence of the owner, with several team members in the apartment. The police took the samples of printed materials from the headquarters. Henadz Ananyew believes the actions of police officers have violated the law. He is going to appeal against the actions of police.

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Brest police detained PCB candidate Mikola Shekel who is running in Brest-Zakhodni district # 1. Shekel was detained when meeting with voters who live in the dormitory of Brest Construction Company # 8. Talking to voters, Mikola Shekel was approached by a tipsy young man who ordered to stop campaigning and demanded to see Shekel’s certificate of a candidate. When Mr. Shekel showed him the certificate, the guy said he was a policeman and had to detain the candidate. He was accused of having forged the certificate because it had no photo of the candidate. Mikola Shekel, who used to work for law-enforcement bodies, is indignant at the behavior and incompetence of the police man. He was detained for 1.5 hour until the arrival of other police officers. He does not exclude that policemen were especially instructed to disrupt campaigning of opposition candidates.

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In the evening of 28 September Shklow police searched the apartment of Alexander Shcharbak. Mr. Shcharbak is campaign manager of BPF candidate Ryhor Kostusew. The district prosecutor sanctioned the search in Shcharbak’s apartment. The campaign manager thinks such measures are connected with the fact that there are a lot of anti-referendum leaflets spread in Shklow district. The search in his apartment lasted for 30 minutes. Four policemen were looking for printed materials but found nothing.
The search in the apartment of the campaign manager is the third case in the region. Earlier the police searched the apartments of proxies of BPF candidate in Bialynichy and Fashchawka village of Shklow district.