'Signs of extremism' found in Paznyak books


Activist of Conservative Christian Party BPF will be tried for importing them into Belarus.

On November 26, an activist of the Conservative Christian Party of the Belarusian Popular Front Ales Chakholsky was summoned to the Minsk police department of the Frunze rayon, where he was given the protocol filed under Art. 17:11 of the Administrative Code (production, distribution and (or) storage of extremist materials). After that, the activist was taken to court. Eventually, the protocol was sent back for revision, and the process was delayed, svaboda.org reports.

In late September, when Chakolsky was crossing the Polish-Belarusian border, Belarusian customs officers took away from him for examination the book “Protection of Kurapaty. People’s Memorial” (2 copies, authors – Zyanon Pazniak and Valery Buival) and books by Zyanon Pazniak “Good photography” (2 copies),” “Session of Independence“(2 copies).

On October 26, the expert committee of the Brest region on assessment of information products came to the conclusion that two of the three books – “Good photography” and “Protection of Kurapaty. People’s Memorial” contain signs of extremism.  Relevant notification was received by the activist by mail from the Brest customs. The Deputy Head of Customs Enforcement Unit Rudakou said that the Customs is going to go to court for recognition of extremist publications.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”47259″ img_size=”large”][vc_column_text]Letter from the Brest customs ended up at the disposal of tut.by

Meanwhile, Ales Chakholsky received no info on the outcome of the trial and is now trying to figure out if the books that the customs took from him were officially recognized “extremist literature”.

Books by Paznyak were already detained on the Belarusian border in October 2014. Then 20 publications were taken for examination from Pavel Sevyarynets: “Hard times. Continuation”, “Independence of Belarus. 20 years”,”Declaration – first step towards independence”,”Minsk City Hall during the National Revolution (1990-1991)”,”Terra Dei”,”Arguments”,”Parsival” and others. In February 2015 the owner of the books was told that the Commission did not find in them any extremism.

There has been an administrative case started for the “production, distribution and (or) storage of extremist material” in Belarus. In August 2014 it was brought against the anarchist movement activist Raman Halilau, who was imprisoned by the court for 10 days. Examination of books was not conducted. The status of “extremist literature” was given to the books by the judge of the Soviet District Court Artsyom Byaskishski. According to him, all of the 92 materials that were stored by the activist, were extremist in nature.

This year, Head of the Information Ministry Liliya Ananich said that a special national commission reviewed 100 materials and found that 25 of them had “signs of extremism, promotion of the Nazi ideas, racial or religious intolerance “or” literature, which could be used for terrorist purposes.”

belsat.eu, baj.by

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