Actions on Solidarity Day

17.04.2006.

On 16 April, a Solidarity Day, in Belarus youth conducted a number of actions, including the picket opposite the Russian Embassy in Minsk.

Since 11 a.m. till 6 p.m. in 50-hoddzia Kastrychnika Park there was held a picket in support of the former candidate to presidency Aliaksandr Kazulin, who is still kept in jail. Near another picket in his support there was held another officially authorized picket - against migrants from Central Asia and Middle East. Participants of this picket held posters ‘Today Black Immigrant, Tomorrow Black Occupant’. They handed out informational booklets to passers-by. It was the first authorized racist picket. Several weeks ago the authorities also permitted pickets of protest against the EU policy.

One of the organizers of the action of solidarity, Iryna Khalip, thinks that the international community must give juridical assessment to these actions of the Belarusian authorities: ‘The Belarusian authorities have always paid inadequate reaction to the solidarity actions on the 16th day of month. However, the reaction to today’s action exceeds all limits. The authorities arranged their own picket against immigrants. To my mind, these are the first visible traits of Nazism. I think it is one of the primary tasks of the international community to give the legal assessment to the things that happened in Minsk this Sunday.’

About four dozens of students held a flash-mob in Dzerzhinsky Square, opposite the central KGB office. They read aloud the articles of the Constitution that guarantee the liberty of meetings, assemblies, processions and liberty of speech. The riot police ringed the place of the action and put down the passport data of some of the action participants, but didn’t detain anybody.

At 8 p.m. about eight dozens people gathered near the Russian Embassy in Minsk. They lit candles to protest against the support of Lukashenka’s policy by the Russian Federation. The picketers stood with candles for half an hour. Then they left the candles opposite the Embassy and dispersed. Special police forces detained several persons and put down their passport data. The police also videoed the action.

At 9 p.m. several dozens of people proceeded from Kastrychnitskaia Square to Niamiha Street with candles in their hands.