Former “MP” candidate Ales Mekh can’t find job
- 13.11.2008, 11:08
Former “MP” candidate, representative of the Belarusian Popular Front, Ales Mekh, fired for his political activity, still can’t find a job in Kobryn.
Engineer of the Kobryn department of cross-country gas pipelines Ales Mekh faced problems after an “informal conversation” in a cabinet of the department’s chief Uladzimir Halashka. It was an “educational” conversation between Mekh from one side and Halashka and Kobryn KGB head Basko. Mekh was offered to estimate practicability of his running in the “parliamentary elections”. In other words, Mekh was threatened of dismissal in case he runs in the “elections”.
This finally happened. Ales Mekh was dismissed from a post of engineer of the Kobryn department of cross-country gas pipelines and went to law. The court didn’t help him. Judge Alyaksandr Babaskin, unlike numerous Belarusian and international human rights defenders, found dismissal of Mekh fair. The judgement says that Mekh was fired according to labour laws, and his dismissal didn’t have political grounds...
Ales Mekh continues to seek justice. He filed a cassation appeal, but the court of Kobryn didn’t sustain it.
“Usually, cassation appeals are heard during 10–15 minutes. But our hearing of our appeal lasted for three hours. During the trial I turned the attention of judges to lots of grammatical mistakes in the protocol of the preliminary court hearing. The judges admitted this fact but decided that illiteracy of court officers didn’t influence final decision.
Moreover, even prosecutor confirmed what I had said during the first trial, in particular, that there was no voting for my dismissal and it was unknown who of the trade union management took a decision to remove me. The judges didn’t take this fact into consideration, but leaf the previous judgment unchanged,” Ales Mekh told in an interview to “Narodnaya Volya” newspaper.
He is not going to stop and plans to go through all instances to the Supreme Court.
“I don’t have another choice. I spend my free time writing complaints to different instances. Besides, I am trying to find a job in Kobryn. But private and state-run companies don’t employ me. I hope the situation will change after a while,” the oppositionist says.
Aleh, reader of “Narodnaya Volya”, confirms that Kobryn dwellers hope for victory of Ales Mekh and support him.
“Kobryn dwellers keep an eye on how Mekh is struggling with the system. They hope he will win. He spoke to workers of our plant. Everyone enjoyed his speech, it was expressive, clear and easy to understand. When the director wanted to break his speech, Mekh answered him correctly, and the director didn’t tires to say more. The people applauded after his speech, they weren’t afraid. Why should we afraid? We earn 270–300 thousand rubles,” the reader told.