Updated at 17:53,27-03-2024

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos

UDF.BY

21.50 Demidenko, together with his colleagues were detained at the metro station "Moskovskaya". This he managed to told Radio Liberty before the connection was broken.

21.30 Some of the activists, including Nikolai Demidenko left the meeting, accompanied by officers in plain clothes. Radio Liberty reports on the detention of the Young Front activist Roman Vasilyev.

21.00 At the meeting the resolution "Stop Nuclear Genocide of the Belarusian people."
was adopted.

20.50 The Executive Secretary of the BCD Dennis Sadowski announced that the rally was over and asked to disperse, or to lay flowers and light candles at the Chernobyl Chapel. The event was asked to be over by Deputy Chief of Minsk city executive committee Igor Yevseyev, as the allotted time is over. Some people went to the chapel.

20.45 Professor Georgiy Lepine said the second Chernobyl Belarus will not survive. Ostrovets activist Nikolai Ulasevich told how his and other activists' homes in Ostrovets were searched. Then Nina Yermolinska from Soligorsk spoke, who recalled the issue of political prisoners.

20.40 Belsat TV reports with reference to human rights activist Anastasia Loika that near the "McDonald's" are two minibuses filled with detainees.

The leader of the youth wing of the BCD Marina Khomich in his speech called on Belarusians to join the boycott and protest against the construction of nuclear power plants.

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos


The banner says: Sasha are you a fool?


20.35 Young Front activist Nikolai Demidenko came out, and said that his colleagues thought long over the slogan for the campaign, then silently launched the slogan "Sasha, are you a fool?", Nasha Niva reports. After this agents in plain clothes came to the scene.

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos


Young Front members launching lanterns into the sky.

20.25 Aleksey Yanukevich says that we need government that does not allow trading of the national interests. "Nuclear Power Plant are being built by Russians, and there is no guarantee that Chernobyl will not happen again today," said the politician. Due to the construction of nuclear power plants in Ostrovets Belarus's reliance on Moscow will increase.

20.20 The representative of "Eco House" Tatyana Novikova is speaking. "The government has once again shown how they relate to the Chernobyl tragedy," she said. She notes that the authorities do not allow to disseminate information, but there's the Internet, and to hide the facts about the consequences of the disaster is not so simple. The consequences of Chernobyl will be felt for 24,000 years. That's how much is a half-life of plutonium.

"We insist that the agreements for the construction of nuclear power plant were canceled", Novikova said, noting that a banner saying "Close your Fukushima." was not allowed at the rally area.

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos


20.15 Yuri Khodyko began the rally. He said that the government again left demonstrators without a sound-amplifying equipment. He is talking about the Chernobyl disaster, which occurred 26 years ago. He told about the concealment of the disaster's consequences and about the absence of measures to overcome its effects in Belarus.

A minute of silence was announced, during which the Chernobyl bell tolls.

According to preliminary information, the youth activists of "Yabloko" were detained. As one of the witnesses told BelaPAN, at a bus stop a minivan with tinted windows with no numbers approached them. Men in civilian clothes jumped out of it and he was dragged into it by a few people.

20.00 Part of the participants passed through the turnstiles. Agents of the police special forces inspecting people, checking out posters and banners.

19.55 Activist Dmitri Kasperovich was not allowed to carry on the place of meeting the banner "No nuclear power plants", they took it away and threw away in the trash, Nasha Niva informs.

19.50 Participants reached the Park of Peoples Friendship, where the rally will be held. Nearby are already paddy wagons and cars without license plates. Area for the rally is fenced. Speakers at the rally will use megaphones, as they haven't got the sound-amplifying equipment. BelaPAN reports with reference to the representative of the Public Association "Eco House" Tatiana Novikova, a contract for the equipment rent was awarded to a sole trader on the basis of decision of Minsk city executive committee, which allowed the march and rally. Moreover, Novikova said, last week, meeting with the organizers of the Way, deputy chief of Minsk Police Department Igor Evseev assured them there won't be any problems with the sound equipment if all the documents will be processed properly. However, a few minutes before the start of the rally, the equipment was detained by police and taken to the police department of the Sovietski District. As the police explained, they are going to check the documents and the equipment itself. According to Novikova, together with the equipment they delivered to the department a businessman who rented it.

19.25 The column is passing by "Neighbours" supermarket on Surganova street. One of the LGBT activists movement Sergei Androsenko told Radio Liberty two unidentified men was broken the flag of the LGBT movement and asked the representatives of sexual minorities to move from the middle of the column in its tail.

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos

19.05 The column is approaching Yakub Kolas street. Among the marchers - disabled people in wheelchairs and on crutches, children and old people, many young people. Agents in civilian clothes are filming the faces of participants, the numbers of honking cars.

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos


18.50 In the column are at least 1,000 people. White-red-white flags are raised, flags of the United Civil Party, "European Belarus", BCD, "Tell the Truth!", the Belarusian Popular Front, sexual minorities, Russian Youth "Jabloko", "Young Belarus", streamers "Freedom to Bialiatski", "Boycott."

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos

18.45 The column is walking down the Surganova street. Traffic policemen cover the traffice so that the march participants crossed the roadway. Representatives of sexual minorities are joining in.

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos


18.35 The column begins to cross the Independence Avenue. The procession is attended by about 500 people. People are chanting "Gyve Belarus (Long live Belarus!)", "Verym, mozham, peramozham" (We do Believe, Able and Win), "Freedom to political prisoners!".

18.30 The procession has moved. In front are Aleksey Yanukevich and Gregory Kostusev are carrying the icon of Our Lady of Chernobyl, beating the Chernobyl bell. People are chanting "Long live Belarus!".

18.25 Protesters brought an icon and the Chernobyl bell. We hear his punches. In the crowd of the participants banners were raised "there is no peaceful atom", "Court officials and prosecutors harm to our health worse than radiation", "No to nuclear power plants."

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos


Near the collection site the manager of the organizing committee of the Belarusian Freedom Party Sergei Vysotsky and his colleagues announced the creation of the movement "New Belarusa Aainst the Ostrovets NPP". The initiators are dressed in yellow plastic capes. Police tried to stop the performance of Sergei and to detain him, but people are repulsed Vysotsky, and now he is collecting signatures against nuclear power in Ostrovets, Radio Liberty informs.

Trains don't stop at the Metro station "the Academy of Sciences".

18.20 Young activists unfurled the large BCD flag.

18.10 At the gathering place the ex-presidential candidate Vital Rymasheuski came with the leader of Belarus' leftists Sergei Kalyakin, former political prisoner Dmitry Bondarenko and his wife, with the young politician Artur Finkevich, deputy chairman of the UCP Lev Margolin, head of the organizing committee Yuri Khadyka, writers Gennady Buravkin and Sergei Zakonnikov, Chairman of the TBM Oleg Trusov.

Inscriptions on the posters and banners are carefully checked by police officers.

Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos


Chernobyl Path rally was held in Minsk - photos


18.00. The number of protesters is increasing. The flags of the campaigns "Tell the Truth" and campaign "European Belarus" appeared.

17.50 People are coming to the point of collection. Near Academy of Sciences are about 100 people, some of them are passing into the fenced area. People bring with them the white-red-white flags, posters on "Chernobyl" topics.

17.40 Ostrovets UCP activist Ivan Kruk is being searched.

17.20 The place for the Chernobyl Path rally participants near the Academy of Sciences was begin fencing by the special police squad. In the neighboring yards, as it has happened before during the mass rallies the so-called "Tsikhari" (hiding silently) are appearing - the cars without license plates. Near Academy of Sciences is a group of police SWAT officers.

17.00 According to Radio Liberty in Minsk an activist Igor Simbirev, who came to take part in the rally was detained by force. He was accused of using foul language and was taken to a court.

15.40. Picket on the anniversary of the Chernobyl accident was twice banned in Slonim, Radio Liberty informs.

14.15 Alexander Lukashenko has called the issue of building a second nuclear power plant in Belarus "irrelevant for a while". However, he stated that "we are the masters in this land. And we will decide where to build and what to build," commenting on the claims of Lithuania on building the nuclear power plant in Ostrowiec.

"If on the conditions, which Russia build a nuclear power plant, the nuclear power plants would be built on the second place, and it is in the Mogilev region, then we would have been much richer", Lukashenko said. "If there is an investor on such conditions- the Japanese, Koreans, the French with the Germans, perhaps the Americans - then I would be happy".

14.00. Pickets on the anniversary of the Chernobyl accident are prohibited in Vitebsk region and Vitebsk, Radio Liberty reports.

13.20. The liquidator of the Chernobyl accident, Stanislav Kholodovich is not be able to get to the "Chernobyl Path" in Minsk, as the leadership of District water treatment plant where he works, without explanation has replaced the working night shift from 25 to 26 April on the day one on April 26. Kholodovich stated the shift has been replaced on the initiative of the Director, Human Rights Center Viasna informs

13.10. Young Front activist Dmitriy Stankevich was sentenced to three days of administrative arrest on April 26, he was arrested with a banner "Chernobyl Path", according to Human Rights Center "Viasna". The activist was convicted on charges of disorderly conduct.

10.50 . In the evening of April 25 the unknown burst in the door of ecologist Vladimir Volodin. He himself was not at home, but the two Russians who were in the apartment were taken away their passports by the policemen, who were called to ward off intruders..

9.30 . The police conducts preventive detentions. Before the action were arrested Young Front activists Pavel Sergei Shuleyko Anastasia, Catherine Galickaja was searched. All the morning the police were trying to get into the apartment of the Young Front chairman Nikolai Demidenko.

The march and rally "Chernobyl Path" will be held in Minsk on April 26. The action was authorized by the authorities.

The traditional march will take place at 18.30 to 19.30 from the building of the National Academy of Sciences through Surganova street to the park of Peoples Friendship (Bangalore Square), where the memorial rally will be held. Then the participants of the event will lay flowers at the Chernobyl chapel near the park.

This year's event will take place under the sign of the abolition of nuclear power plant construction in Ostrovets and the demand to release political prisoners. The organizing committee of "Chernobyl Path -2012," consist of the representatives of the Belarusian Popular Front Party, the movement "For Freedom", "Belaruski Ruh", United Civil Party, campaign Tell the Truth, Young Front, "A Just World" Party, "European Belarus", the public association "Ecodom". Chairman of the organizing committee - Yuri Khodyko.

"Chernobyl Path" has been held in Minsk since 1988.