About 250 Battery Factory Opponents Gathered At Square In Brest

The Brest protesters had even more questions to the officials.

On December 9, opponents of the battery factory construction again gathered at Lenin Square in Brest. Similar meetings have been held here every Sunday since February 25, Radio Racyja reports with reference to BelaPAN.

At 12:40, there were about 250 people in the square, human rights activist Uladzimir Vialichkin has reported.

On December 9, the participants discussed the personal reception of four battery factory construction opponents by the Minister of Nature and Environmental Protection, Andrei Khudyka, on December 5. Activists Dziamyan Lepiasevich, Dzmitry Bekaliuk, Siarhei Helis and blogger Aliaksei Kabanau met with the department head.

The meeting, according to the press service of the Ministry of Natural Resources, was also attended by representatives of the customer of the plant construction, the LLC iPower, of all interested organizations that participated in the development of project documentation of the battery production under construction and the environmental impact assessment report, of the organizations of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Ministry of Health, experts.

As Dzmitry Bekaliuk reported at today's meeting of the factory’s opponents on Lenin Square, the activists appeared to “have even more questions” after the conversation in the Ministry of Natural Resources. He believes that “officials want to start the plant, despite all the violations.”

Dziamyan Lepiasevich, in turn, said that at the meeting the officials “defended the interests of business.” “The minister said: you should understand, that money has already been invested there, the interests of business must also be observed. To which I replied that you, as the minister of nature, should not protect the interests of business, but protect the environment,” – Lepiasevich said.

He said that before the meeting, which lasted more than five hours, the activists were asked to hand over their phones, voice recorders and video recording devices. The officials promised to provide them an audio recording of the meeting afterwards. However, this promise has not been fulfilled so far. The activists were told that the record was damaged and they are trying to restore it. According to Lepiasevich, officials do not want the public to know what was happening at this meeting.

He noted that the devices were withdrawn only from the members of the initiative group of opponents of the construction of the plant. All the other participants in the meeting, including their opponents –representatives of the construction company LLC iPower, were let to participate with phones and computers.