Blast news: some of the detained activists get released from jail

14.07.2008. Tags: unregistered organizations, political persecution, United Civil Party, arrest.
Source: Charter`97.

The opposition activists Siarhei Vysotski and Alexander Serhiyenka, detained over the case of blasts on 4 July, were released from the KGB detention center on Saturday, 12 July.

Sirhei Vysotski, coordinator of the Belarusian National Democratic Center in Kyiv, told to RFE/RL that he had been detained on 10 July after the search in his apartment. The oppositionist was a suspect in the case of the bomb blast on 4 July under Article 339 part 3 (malicious hooliganism).

‘Prison guards looked into the cell every five minutes and called me a terrorist’, Mr. Vysotski said.

Siarhei had some interrogations, where he was asked what he had done at night 3-4 July. But he has an alibi. A KGB investigator made him give a written undertaking not to leave the place and not to divulge the secrecy of the investigation.

According to Vysotski, Alexander Serhiyenka, one of the leaders of the Young Democrats, the youth wing of the United Civil Party, was released, too.

Pavel Kuryianovich, activist of the European Belarus civil campaign, was released on 13 July. He was detained by KGB officers on 10 July on suspicion of implication in the bomb blast in Minsk during a concert dedicated to the official Independence Day.

After release from jail Pavel Kuryianovich said that he had not seen any of the persons who had been detained over the blast case; he was alone in a cell in the KGB pretrial detention center.

According to Kuryianovich, he was interrogated only once. He was asked what he had been doing at night 3/4 July. Kuryianovich said he had an alibi, which was proved by the KGB check.

Pavel Kuryianovich believes that the persecution and detentions of democratic activists are connected with the electoral campaign.

‘In the beginning (of the search), they saw a poster ‘Jeans – for freedom!’ on the wall, and a police officer asked me: ‘Are you a member of the Jeans unregistered radical organization?’. After the search they guarded me to the KGB and questioned me. I had an alibi – I was at my friend’s house that evening. I was surprised, why is it I who was detained? They checked my alibi during two days, questioned my friends and then set me free,’ Pavel Kuryanovich said to the Charter’97 press center.