PC seized from Ales Pushkin during a search

04.09.2008. Tags: provocation, search.
Source: Charter`97.

Artist Ales Pushkin demands to return his things which had been seized from him during the search in the case of Minsk blast. He sent an appropriate request to prosecutor of Minsk Mikalai Kulik. The artist’s house in Bobr (the Krupki district, the Minsk region) town was searched on 27 August. ‘On that day I was summoned to the directorate for crime detection of the police department of the Minsk city executive committee. An investigator was polite and talkative. Then my wife Yanina phoned to me and told our house had been searched by KGB officers,’ A.Pushkin said. As the artist informed, 56 things were seized: a computer, CDs, video- and audio disks, videocassettes and books. ‘The most interesting fact is that a document – copy signed by former KGB head Stsiapan Sukharenka, was seized. I don’t know what this document contains, I don’t remember I had this document,’ A.Pushkin said. ‘I think that the search and summons to the directorate for crime detection were specially held at the same time. If I had been at home, I would have thrown them out of my house. They know I would have done this. If I would have kicked them out, I had created many difficulties for them: in this case they had handcuffed me and instigated a criminal case. But I was just summonsed to Minsk,’ Ales Pushkin supposes. ‘In general, different bodies abuse a Belarusian feature of obeying the laws. Earlier, if they wanted an event to fail, they ‘laid mines’ in art galleries. Even Krapivinskaya field, a traditional site for celebrating the Day of Belarusian Military Glory, was ‘mined’ last year. Now they search apartments of artists. This mess must be stopped,’ Pushkin thinks. In the artist’s view, he will be given his property back no sooner than in 6 months.