Minsk police detain protester against opening restaurant close to Stalin-era mass grave

The Minsk police detained Belarusian writer and dramatist Alyaksei Turovich in Kurapaty on Tuesday evening.

“He phoned me when he was on Karbyshev street, after his leaving Kurapaty. I clearly heard the police asking him to go to a police station. I also heard the voice of activist Nina Bahinskaya in the background,” politician Pavel Sevyarynets told Belsat.

We tried to to contact the police department of Minsk district to which Turovich might have been taken to, but in vain.

Kurapaty, a place on the outskirts of Minsk, is not just the national memorial and a mass grave of the victims of Stalinist repression; since 1993, it has been is a site of historical and cultural heritage. According to historians, 100,000 – 250,000 persons might have been killed there.

Over the last few days Turovich took an active part in defending Kurapaty. It was him who did not let a group of motorcyclists visit the restaurant on June 9.

(UPD) The policemen drew three protocols upon the playwright and released him.

Defenders of Kurapaty, the place of Stalin-era executions near Minsk, keep protesting against ‘dancing on the bones’, i.e. opening the restaurant Let’s Go And Eat in the close vicinity of the mass grave. Activists first asked the authorities to interfere with the situation, and then decided to act independently. They are trying to block the arrival of cars with products on the territory of the restaurant.

Belsat.eu