Police tape oppositionists on video in a sobering station

Valery Ukhnalyou, the deputy chairman of the Party of Communists described as a police provocation his yesterday's detention together with Viktar Ivashkevich, the deputy chairman of the Party of the Belarusian Popular Front. Ivashkevih was with his friends in a Minsk cafe to celebrate his birthday anniversary. When they were walking out, police officers rushed in a police bus, detained the opposition politicians and took them to a sobering station.

The men were charged with being drunk in a public place. Valery Ukhnalyou maintains that they were not drunk. The police took three hours to wait for an order what to do with the detainees.


“The Social March (I am running the organizing committee) is still far away. The European March is upcoming, so they wrote a new protocol," Ukhnalyou said..

He also said that Viktar Ivashkevich was allegedly disseminating information about the European March which is not yet approved by the authorities.

Ukhnalyou was later released, but Ivashkevich is facing a trial at Minsk's Pershamayski District Court today.


“The authorities have launched preventive measures in order to shut down that wave associated with the preparations for the European March and the Social March. This provocation was a planned action of the police," Ukhnalyou told the European Radio for Belarus.

The oppositionists were video taped by police while in a sobering station.