Police do not confirm fact of detention of Ukrainian citizens

They are allegedly to stand trial in the Maskouski district court. According to FEMEN activist Alexandra Shevchenko, they got this information from their friends.

Shevchenko: "Nothing is known for sure yet. The only thing that we were informed about by people we know is that they were in the Maskouski district police department and would stand trial in the court of this very district today. This is what they told us. However, this information is not precise or confirmed, and we still don't know for sure where they are and what is happening to them". 

According to Alexandra, the girls were supposed to leave for Kyiv in the evening on December 19. Communication with them failed in the evening. Alexandra thinks that they might have been detained either on the way to the station or directly at the station.

According to the activist, the girls were prepared for a detention when they were leaving for Minsk, and had "political prisoner's sets" with them. However, they did not expect things to turn out like this.

Shevchenko: "The girls were prepared for everything. They were ready to leave the place of the action in a police car. However, they did not expect they would be taken in an unknown direction late at night. When girls get arrested under the flashes of the photo cameras, we know for sure that journalists will inform us where they are and what happened. And now we can only guess where they are and whether they are still alive!"

Alexandra says that they have already appealed to the Ukraine's Embassy in Belarus for help, and prepared a statement to the Belarus' Embassy in Ukraine. In case the activists' destiny remains unknown till the end of the day, they will conduct an action of protest near the Belarusian Embassy on December 21.

Euroradio called to the Maskouski district police department looking for the missing FEMEN activists. However, neither the officer-on-duty, nor the press-officer Aksana Kandratsiuk informed anything about the Ukrainian citizens. They did not confirm the fact of their detention or the fact of their being in that very police department at that moment.