Yauhen Afnahel: Gonna Fight Further On!

The European Belarus coordinator has been released.

Yauhen Afnahel has reported this to the website Charter97.org. The opposition politician has revealed the details of the provocation organized against him.

- At about 13.30, my wife and I went to Kalodzishchy to buy some building materials for our house at the local building market.

When we were leaving the warehouse, the traffic police together with the criminal investigation officers stopped us. They blocked the road, and right after that a car with the criminal investigators arrived, the officers started filming what was going on, got into our car.

They put my wife into one car, and me into another. I managed to inform in two words that I was detained. They warned me straightaway that I was charged with thievery, for which I could face criminal persecution. They said I would not see my wife in the near future.

They delivered me to the Barauliany district police department together with the warehouser from whom I bought the building materials. While we were driving, they told him directly that he had to report thievery if he wanted to avoid problems for himself.

I don’t know whether he filed such a report, but in the Barauliany district police department they seized my phone, drew up the administrative offense protocol, in which they took explanations from me.

After that, I was just sitting there in the room, being filmed with a video camera for three hours. A police officer was filming me for three hours, from time to time changing the rechargeable batteries in his camera.

After the long telephone negotiations, a district police officer, who made the protocol, appeared. He said that my status in this case had been changed for “witness”. Now I am free.

- How do you think, why have the authorities used such a provocation?

- I would like to thank the independent journalists who disseminated the information about me in the media. It was obvious that the policemen became nervous, when they learned the case had become public. I think this had a great influence.

The events of last week, I mean the appearance of the “parasitic” database, restrictions in the internet, provoked an unprecedented people’s activity, which has manifested in the social networks and the internet so far.

The authorities realize that, in the near future, this activity could splash into the streets. They realize that, before these events, it is necessary to neutralize those opposition activists whom they know, with whom they had clashed before.

Another fact that influenced the case was that the criminal investigation officers thought that the total cost of the building materials that I had purchased was enough to bring me to criminal liability, not administrative one. When we were going to the police department, they were sure it was a criminal offense.

However, when they checked the costs, they saw this was not a criminal case at all. Probably, they thought it was not worth it to start all this for just an administrative case.

I’d like to note that this incident has not influenced me in any way. Gonna fight further on.