Vaukavysk: Prominent local historian and teacher arrested for 10 days over video posted in 2018
Vaukavysk-based historian and educator Andrey Kolas was detained on September 27.
The formal reason for the security officers’ visit was an ongoing check of the owners of hunting weapons, Euroradio reports. As a result, the man was arrested for 10 days.
“They took him to the police department, where they already had a prepared bone to pick – a harmless clip that Andrey posted on his social networks in 2018 with a small logo of the website, which was recognised as extremist in 2021! Andrey was put in a cell together with a petty thief and a homeless man. Only clothes were handed over to him, they refused to accept food products books. Every evening he is taken for interrogations, during which they [policemen] are using bad language and shouting at him, mockingly urging him to leave for Poland or promising that he will get a life sentence,” Kolas’ friends said.
In his native town Andrey Kolas is known as ‘a man who contributed to hundreds of young patriots’ graduation from a pedagogical college’. He taught them the history and culture of Belarus in Belarusian. In addition, the historian also worked as the director of a travel company that created a museum of the Belarusian nobility.
Kolas’ colleagues also say that the pressure on teachers of Belarusian language course Mova Nanova continues in Vaukavysk. Many of them were forced to go abroad; when the classes were held, Andrey was a members of the Mova Nanova team.
belsat.eu
