In April, Alena Putsikovich from Ivanava was sentenced to two and a half years of freedom restriction for reposting “knowingly false information” about internal affairs officers. The Russian language and literature teacher with thirty years of experience, the mother of two children, filed an appeal and continued her work. According to Alena, she learned about the decision of the court of the second instance on June 17 during the meeting with the school director, where she was informed about her dismissal.
“The school principal invited me into the office,” says Alena Putsikovich. “He was sitting there with the headteacher, the personnel manager, and the trade union leader – the director invited everybody he could, the rest of the administration was on leave. He read me a letter from the prosecutor informing me about the court’s decision on the appeal and told me I was dismissed. I still haven’t been officially informed that the court’s decision came into force, but I was informed as soon as possible at work that I was fired. This is strange, but it fits into the picture of what is being done in our country.”
These actions did not surprise Alena. Officially she will be fired on July 2, but now the teacher is on leave. She is a philologist by background and has no doubt she will find a job with her experience.
“I took the message absolutely calmly; it was predictable, everyone was already laughing, how is it that I am not fired? I myself was a little surprised. At that meeting, I said that I remained an honest person and that I felt power because it was in the truth – I had made sure that I was not ashamed to look people in the eye that our courts were politicized. Still, the regime would not hold out for long so that everything would be fine. I think I came out of this situation a winner.”
belsat.eu
