BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

11/10/2007

Hunt For "Dead-Boby Smell" Ends In Jailing Of Belarusian Oppositionist For Foul Language

A district court in Minsk on October 10 jailed opposition member Ales Atroshchankau for 10 days, finding him guilty of uttering obscenities in a public place, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reported. Earlier the same day, a police officer broke into Atroshchankau's second-floor apartment through a window, allegedly looking for a corpse. A group of investigators, who turned up immediately after the break-in, explained that there was a "dead-body smell" in the building. After searching Atroshchankau's apartment and the hard drive of his computer and finding no corpse, police officers took Atroshchankau to a police station, when they charged him with publicly speaking obscenities and "behaving impudently" toward police. Atroshchankau said the charges were absurd and connected to the European March for Freedom scheduled by the opposition for October 14. "Against the backdrop of dialogue proposed by the opposition, such actions [as my arrest] show that there are groupings within the authorities that sabotage all [reconciliatory] proposals from both the opposition and the authorities," he told RFE/RL. Meanwhile on October 10, in Hrodna, police officers detained Anzhelika Borys and Ihar Bantser, two activists of the Union of Poles of Belarus, which is not recognized by the authorities. Mikola Lemyanouski, a local activist of the Belarusian Popular Front, was also detained. The three are reportedly scheduled to stand trial on October 11, but the nature of the charges against them has not been made public. JM

Source:

http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2007/10/3-cee/cee-111007.asp

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