Kurapaty vandals released on written undertaking not to leave the place
- 14.11.2008, 9:01
On November 13 a face-to-face identification was held in the case of vandalism in Kurapaty. Members of the Conservative Christian party Belarusian Popular Front Aleh Svirydau and Ales Makau visited the investigation department of Minsk region’s police in Baraulyany.
As we have informed, on November 1 at half past 9 p.m. in the wooden area of Kurapaty public activists detained two teenagers who were breaking crosses.
On November 11 after a check policemen opened a criminal investigation. Investigators informed that the teenagers are to be under guard before trial. But on November 13 the young men came to a confrontation with their parents.
The measure of restraint chosen for them was a written undertaking not to leave the place, Radio Svaboda informs.
The investigatory experiment in the wooden area of Kurapaty has been postponed to another day, as there is a thick fog in Minsk today.
It is not the first occasion of vandalism in the wooden area Kurapaty, where in 1937-1941 NKVD punishers shot from 40,000 to 200,000 people according to different estimations. But it is the first time evet when vandals are detained.
In the end of the 1990ies the tablet on the cross “To martyrs of Belarus” was broken. As for the memorial sign “From the US nation to people of Belarus for the sake of memory”, there have been 12 cases of vandalism.
In December 2005 unknown vandals twice defiled the crosses of Kurapaty, the monument to killed Jews and the icon of Our Lady of Kurapaty (painter Alyaksei Marachkin) by swastikas and satanist writings. The crosses were broken many times. Criminal actions were opened basing on these facts, however, criminals have never been found. Last year on the eve of Dzyady the Cross of Martyrdom was broken, and the Conservative Christian Party Belarusian Popular Front activists renewed it.
Citizens addressed the regime with a call to provide protection of the wooden area of Kurapaty, which is officially a historical and cultural area of the first category. However, as an answer the police department of Minsk district offered the organizing committee to pay for guarding the wooden area of Kurapaty.