Siarhei Salash: Special Services Got to Work on Me

27.06.2007. Tags: Belarusian Popular Front, political persecution, local elections.
Source: Nasha Niva.

During the last two days Barysau district prosecutor’s office summoned eight local opposition activists for interrogation. All the interrogated are colleagues of Siarhei Salash, leader of Barysau branch of BPF Party. The summons to the prosecutor’s office was received by Zmitser Babitski, Siarhei Satsuk, Zmitser Matselski, Aleh Matskevich, and others, Nasha Niva reports.

The documents do not say in what role the activists will be interrogated. On Aleh Matskevich question about that, the prosecutor’s office staff responded that they were summoned “without any special reason, on the case of Siarhei Salash’s activity”. They failed to answer Matskevich’s question if the case was criminal or not. None of the summoned has been interrogated yet. Aleh Matskevich will be the first to go, this Thursday. Investigator I. Pashkevich will be in charge of the proceedings.

Siarhei Salash comments the situation: “Obviously, the special services got to work on me. Now they are trying to fix some “illegal actions” on me. They claim they’ve been looking for me since April, although I have never received any papers or invitations to come to the prosecutor’s office. It’s absolutely clear to me that the reason for the persecution is this year’s local elections. When our team managed to carry out quite a successful campaign, the local authorities realized we were able to win!”

As we have informed earlier, originally it was informed that economist Zmitser Babitski won at one of Barysau districts. However, literally in two days the authorities claimed he lost to his pro-Lukashenka opponent by 22 votes. Siarhei Salash was Babitski’s campaign manager. Several days before the Election Day Salash had been sentenced to five days of jail for alleged disorderly conduct. He was released when the election was already over.

“If they really want to bring any criminal charges against me, they will miscalculate. It will draw a wide response not only in Barysau and Belarus, but also in Europe”, Siarhei Salash says.