Mahiliou: youth activists are expelled from university

05.09.2008. Tags: Young Front, political persecution, students, expulsion, Belarusian Christian Democracy, youth leaders, elections-2008.

The coordinator of the Belarusian Christian Democracy Party Tatsiana Shambalava and a leader of Mahiliou organization of the Young Front Rastsislau Pankratau are expelled from Mahiliou State University.

Tatsiana Shambalava, third-year student of the historical faculty commented: ‘At my summer exam session I did not pass two exams. At that time I was not sure whether it was my fault or somebody was putting obstacles to me. On 1 September I came to my dean Uladzimir Barysenka to sit an exam. I answered the examination questions, but the dean decided to put an unsatisfactory mark for me, so that I would have to sit the exam before a board of examiners. Then I understood that it was not only my fault. On 4 September the board of examiners also put an unsatisfactory mark for me at the exam in the modern history of Europe and America.’

Tatsiana believes that the reasons for her expulsion from the university are political ones: she participated in the electoral race as a pretender for candidate from the United democratic forces, but constituency electoral commission #87 considered that a part of the dates in the signature lists were put down not by electors, but by members of her team, and did not register her as a candidate.

Another youth activist, first-year student of the faculty of foreign languages Rastsislau Pankratau said that during the summer session he was not allowed to sit an exam and got two unsatisfactory marks on other ones. In the beginning of this curriculum measure he managed to receive a satisfactory mark when he sit exam for the second time before a board of examiners. At the exam in the English language the board of examiners put an unsatisfactory mark to him. Mr. Pankratau says that the dean of his faculty many times proposed that he took his documents from the university on his own will, but he always refused.

‘The pressurization started in autumn 2007, when KGB officers started coming to me to have ‘conversations’. Since April 2008 I was disturbed by the dean’s office. I passed my first session successfully, but at the second I was I was flunked,’ commented Rastsislau. He also considers that the real reason for his expulsion is his membership in the Young Front.

Human rights activists for free elections