br23 blog - minsk, belarus

Another one was arrested today… Believe it or not, the man is not even taking part in this campaign. He’s too old, and he has cardiac problems. He’s on heart medication.

Today in the morning he went for a walk: he went out to accompany his son to work, because he’s a family man, and because doctors recommended him to take regular walks. As he was enjoying the icy Minsk air a car suddenly stopped next to him, people dressed in black leather jackets leaped out from the car and started beating him up. When his son tried to interfere and protect his father, the men in leather jackets started beating him too.

He was thrown into the car and taken to a police station. And several hours later a young female judge [photo] sentenced him to a 15-day arrest for “resisting a police officer” (!).

They sentenced his son to a 15-day arrest too. On the same charges.

Why was this frail old man attacked? Why was he jailed? He was not posing any danger to Lukashenka. He wasn’t even active in politics anymore…

I think I know the answer. The name of the man is Siarhiej Antonchyk, and he was quite famous in the early 1990’s. He was the first person who confronted and tried to go after our young authocratic ruler Alexander Lukashenka.

Twelve years ago, in 1994, Antonchyk as a member of parliament compiled a special report, providing some proofs that Lukashenka is already becoming corrupted, just several months after being elected. Antonchyk, himself a member of the Belarusian National Front (which Lukashenka hated), was a chief of the anti-corruption committee in the parliament (we still had a normal parliament back then!), and he sent his findings to be published in the newspapers.

At that moment Lukashenka’s people interfered and banned the publication of the anti-corruption report in the media. Most independent newspapers came out with big “white holes” on their front pages as a way of protest.

This was the first big case of censorship in Lukashenka’s Belarus, and this was Lukashenka’s first blow at the free media. Obviously, after that Antonchyk became his personal enemy.

Apparently, Lukashenka is still scared of this man, even now, 12 years later. And he kept harrasing him all these years.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 10th, 2006 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Belarusian politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.