On the day of the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of Viktar Hanchar and Anatoli Krasouski, members of the United Civil Party held a rally in the center of Minsk in memory of missing people.
The rally was held next to the pickets collecting signatures for the nomination of candidates for the House of Representatives of Siarhei Sparysh, Mikalai Kazlou, Piotr Paprauka and Vasil Zhorau.
At some point, a man who introduced himself as a member of the district commission approached the picketers. He ordered Siarhei Sporysh and Mikalai Kazlou to remove the posters, as only the materials with the biographical information of the candidate could be placed at the pickets. The man was accompanied by people in civilian clothes, who recorded everything on camera.
A total of 15 people came to remember the missing people, while another passerby joined in the middle of the action. It lasted about an hour.
A performance in memory of the missing in the Free Theatre
The Belarusian Free Theatre has prepared a performance of “Understanding Love” in memory of Hanchar and Krasouski. It is based on the documentary story of Iryna Krasouskaya.
You can watch the show on Facebook.
On September 16, 1999, the former vice-premier and former chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC) Viktar Hanchar and his friend, businessman Anatoly Krasousky, disappeared on the way to the bathhouse. Broken glass and traces of blood were found at the place of their disappearance.
It is known that Hanchar had prepared documents about Lukashenka violating the Constitution and the illegality of his presidency.
Hanchar was not the first influential politician of Belarus who vanished in 1999. Thus, on 6 April Henadz Karpenka who was preparing for the next presidential election, died mysteriously; on 7 May former Interior Minister Yury Zakharanka disappeared; on 7 July Dzmitry Zavadski, who worked with Pavel Sharamet, disappeared.
Minsk Prosecutor’s Office initiated a criminal case on the fact of disappearance. Aleh Alkayeu, the then head of pre-trial detention center number one, filed a report on the issue of firearms on the eve of the disappearance of Hanchar, Krasouski and Yury Zakharanka.
In 2000, Uladzimir Navumau who then headed the Interior Ministry, received a report from Major-General Mikalai Lapatsik, when he named police colonel Dzmitry Paulichenka as the perpetrator of the kidnapping.
The case never got to court, and the bodies of the missing were never found.
This year, their relatives received a report about the suspension of the investigation.
