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Teenager who was expelled from school over "silent protest" hiding from his parents

A 16-year-old boy who was expelled from a prestigious school for his participation in a "silent protest" in Minsk says in a video statement posted on Youtube on Wednesday that he has to hide from both authorities and his parents.

Raman Pratasevich was briefly detained by police following a silent protest held in the capital city on July 13. Soon after the incident, he was expelled from the Lyceum (pre-university school) of Belarusian National Technical University.

Raman left home after a row with his parents, who prohibited him from participating in a silent protest on September 21. His father is a senior ideology instructor at the Military Academy of Belarus.

"Now the possibility of placing me in a social orphanage as an unruly child is being considered," Raman says in his statement.

This past spring, Raman Pratasevich was nominated to receive a presidential scholarship for his work to develop an "integrated cooling system for a satellite system." Raman spoke about the system at an international conference held in St. Petersburg on the occasion of Cosmonautics Day, where he met with Soviet cosmonaut Georgy Grechko. He planned to apply for admission to Russia's Military Space Academy the following year.

As the boy's father, Dzmitry Pratasevich, told BelaPAN on Wednesday, his son took part in silent protests because he had been told that he could subsequently be enrolled at a university in Poland under the Polish government's Kastus Kalinowski educational assistance program for victims of politically motivated persecution in Belarus. // BelaPAN