Youth activist gets to mental hospital for refusal to collaborate with KGB

04.07.2008. Tags: political persecution, punitive psychiatry, KGB, youth leaders.
Source: Charter`97.

Activist of the youth organization Civil Forum Artsiom Zabaryn was taken to the Minsk mental hospital for examination after he had refused to answer questions of the KGB offices.

As Zabaryn told to Narodnaya Volia , he was called to a military enlistment office to have a test there, but he was met by KGB officers in the office. ‘During the “test” officers asked me about my trip to Georgia, about organisations I belong to, about Kalinouski education program... They proposed me to answer their questions, in return they promised to say a commissar I didn’t study in Belarus, and so I wouldn’t be drafted,’ Artsiom says.

According to the boy, he had been sent to have a medical examination after he refused to answer the questions. Later he was sent to a mental hospital, where a doctor asked him the same questions as KGB officers.

‘I have been at mental hospital since 13 June. I had a cardiogram (I have problems with heart), brain screening, I was ordered some procedures... They are constantly asking: ‘Do you want to serve in the army?’ I was surprised when a chief doctor asked the same question as the KGB officers,’ the democratic activist says.

Add commentary

Comments