Youth Detained on Teturn from Basovishcha Rock Festival

24.07.2007. Tags: Hrodna, detentions.

About 30 youngsters were detained for more than an hour at the railway station of Hrodna Maksim Hubarevich, Aliaksei Salei, Yauhen Skrabutan, Viktar Valko, and Franak Viachorka,. All of them returned from the rock-festival Basovishcha which took place in Poland. Five of the detainees, including Skrabutan and Viachorka, were searched.

As said to RFE/RL by Siarhei Skrabutan, the customs officers must have chosen the people who looked like oppositionists. In the majority of cases they detained those who had been at Basovishcha, but there could be occasional detainees as well.

On 21 July the customs officers also searched an activists of Hrodna Young Front branch Khrystsina Marchuk, who was returning from the festival by car. She was detained at Berastavitsa crossing point for three hours.

‘At first the customs officers took away my passport and lead me to an office. They said that soon their head would come to ask me some questions,’ Khrystsina said.

However, nobody arrived. A customs officer searched her personal belongings and took away CD with a film about Polish Solidarnosc. Then she underwent personal search. The customs officers did not found anything prohibited and returned the CD together with a search report.

In the evening of 22 July the customs officers detained for personal search an activist of For Freedom! movement Andrei Sharenda at ysoka-Litousk crossing point.