English

Prominent scholar attacked by police after Chernobyl march in Minsk

Uladzimir Sodal, a prominent scholar who has researched the work of renowned Belarusian writers, accused police officers of attacking him and his wife after Thursday's Charnobylski Shlyakh opposition demonstration in Minsk.

A clash with riot police occurred after a crowd of some 100 young people waving white-red-white flags set to march further after the demonstration. Up to 20 people were reportedly grabbed but were soon released after their fingerprints had been taken.

In an interview with BelaPAN, the 69-year-old Mr. Sodal said that the policemen acted "in an unexpected and impudent manner." "I could run aside but my dignity did not allow me to do this," he explained. "Why should I, a man who survived the dreadful years of Belarus' occupation by Nazis as a child, flee from my young compatriots in my own country in times of peace?"

"When this happened, I remembered a line from the Belarusian anthem 'We, Belarusians, are peaceful people.' And these peaceful people face this incomprehensible aggression on their way back home. If the authorities wanted to break up the demonstration, they should have done this at the beginning instead of humiliating the people who were returning home," he went on to say.

Mr. Sodal, who has physical disability, said he did not plan to file a complaint in connection with the attack, saying that it would be "senseless."