Halina Yarashevich: “I was branded with infamy like in Stalin times”
- 4.12.2009, 15:31
Dismissals of Belarusian oppositionists for their political activism continue.
Recently a press-conference of co-chairmen of the organising committee for creation of the Belarusian Christian Democratic Party (BCD) Alyaksei Shein, Vital Rymasheuski and Heorhi Dzmitruk was held. They said crackdown on founders of the party had become unprecedented and systematic, BelaPAN informs.
As informed by Alyaksei Shein, BCD organisers have recorded more than 30 cases of pressure on people who signed the constituent documents of the party.
“It is a mass campaign. Under different pretexts founders are invited for conversations at their places of work and demanded to withdraw their signatures under the founding document for party creation. They are threatened dismissal. If it failed at their places of work, they are summoned to executive committees, and conversations are held with them with participation of ideology officers and special services officers. Activists are demanded to provide explanations of the fact that they had signed the documents as the BCD founders, and said they are inviting big troubles,” Shein said.
As said by him, such cases have taken place in Brest, Minsk, Minsk region, Babrujsk, Slonim, Hrodna, Bykhau and other cities. As a result, five persons wrote statements that they withdraw their signatures under BCD founding documents.
One of the founders of the party, Halina Yarashevich from Baranavichy, took part at a press-conference. She was fired from work for her denial to withdraw her signature.
“I worked in a medical institution. I was not a health expert, I was engaged in advertising. The direction was satisfied by my work, and a contract with me for the next year was extended. But when it turned out that I had signed BCD founding documents, a general meeting of the administration was called, and I was stigmatized there as if it were Stalin time. The administration said that I have too much leisure time, and offered me to work as a street cleaner in my free time. I certainly disagreed, and I was fired before the present contract expired. I was said that I ‘had been noticed in the circles of opposition,” Yarashevich said.