On the evening of April 26, activists gathered at the Academy of Sciences in Minsk to walk along the traditional ‘Chernobyl Path’ route. Unlike previous years, the authorities did not give permission for a demonstration this time.
At the beginning, there were only two participants at the gathering place, and next to them were more than a dozen policemen in civilian clothes, including the head of the Minsk riot police, Dzmitry Balaba. Behind the building of the Kastrychnik cinema there was an ambulance and paddy wagons were parked on the parallel streets.
At about 6 pm, the organizers of the rally – the co-chairman of the BCD Volha Kavalkova and the first deputy chairman of the Green Party Dzmitry Kuchuk— arrived. Not all political parties supported the call to join the Chernobyl Path rally, but there were representatives of the United Civil Party, the BCD, the “Together” Solidarity Movement, the Young Front.
“By not allowing such rallies, the authorities violate the constitutional right of citizens to peaceful protest. But it seems that the time has come for the Belarusians to begin expressing an opinion regardless of prohibitions or permits,” said Kuchuk.
Activist Nadzeya Hatsak said that she came to the rally because of her moral convictions.
“There is a high probability that there will be no more rallies at all. After all, take a look: there came only a few people… I think that demanding money from us for the fact that we don’t even ask to protect us is at least unfair, it is also ugly,” she believes.
According to Nadzeya, they will not only collect money from the opposition, but also from the organizers of all events, “but there will be no problems with funding in the Belarusian Republican Youth Union.”
Some participants came with posters: an elderly woman a poster with mortality figures in Belarus. According to her, this way she wanted to draw attention to the problem of radiation pollution of the country’s territory. However, the demonstrators’ statements were not limited to the topic of Chernobyl. The poster of another participant said: “The socio-economic Chernobyl is much worse than the nuclear one.”
Fifteen minutes after the meeting, Nina Bahinskaya, who unfolded the white-red-white flag, was approached by a police officer in uniform and reminded that the rally was not authorized and participants could be held administratively liable. He asked the participants to “proceed to the official location of the event – the Kyiv Square”. After that, about 30 people moved along the Independence Avenue to the square to lay flowers at the chapel to the “Victims of Charnobyl”. The people held two mourning flowers, two national flags were flying over the crowd.
Having reached the Kyiv Square, the participants of the rally read a prayer in memory of those killed in the Chernobyl disaster, sang the song “Mighty God”, laid flowers at the chapel and lit candles.
An application for the Chernobyl Path rally was submitted by representatives of political parties and public organizations on April 8. The application provided for the gathering of participants at 6 pm at the site near the Academy of Sciences and a procession across Surhanau Street to the Chernobyl Chapel. The Minsk City Executive Committee allowed the rally, but ordered the applicants to pay for police services in the amount of more than 5,700 rubles.
In response, the organizing committee of the rally made a statement in which it called the collection of money for the work of the police funded from the state budget unacceptable.
As a result, the organizers sent a written refusal to the Minsk City Executive Committee. “It’s not about money — this is a fundamental political position. If we do not reject it now, this practice will continue in the future, as was the case with Freedom Day,” co-chair of the BCD Volha Kavalkova told belsat.eu.
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