A review of antinuclear action in Minsk 25/04

Содержание

While the opposition leaders who had "survived" after the election campaign discussed how to organise the Chernobyl March-2011 (an anual antinuclear demonstration in Belarus) and agreed to make another action "for themselves" in the Park of Peoples' Friendship, Belarusian anarchists decided to act more quickly and challenging, as well as to cover more people then the authorities kindly permit.

On 23rd and24th of April there were screenings organised. Movies "Victims" and "Nuclear debates" by Vladimir Chertkoff are dedicated to the Chernobyl liquidators and a science conference on health care. Another demonstrated movie is "The Clowd" directed by Gregor Schnitzler which depicts the lot of a small settlement near a nuclear power plant.

On 25th April members of the Antinuclear Resistance were planning to carry out a peculiar flash-mob action in several public places. In an hour the anarchists were to visit three areas of heavy pedestrian traffic: "Riga" supermarket, an area at the "Pushkinskaja" metro station, and a bus stop at the "Kamennaja Gorka" metro station. Picketing the fist place for at least 10 minutes the participants were actively distributing leaflets with the position of anarchist concerning the nuclear power plant construction in Belarus, holding banners and giving a speech through a loudspeaker. Thus we tried to remind the population of Belarus once more that that would be us and our children who will have to pay off the credit, but not the authorities, for it is clear that the budget consists of our taxes, and if it' our money, all the expenses must be approved by the people, not some random guys from the government.

At the next stop-over thing suddenly went wrong when about 15 plain-cloth cops started to grab the participants who had just started the action. All in all 12 people were detained, some beaten up and put before court the next day. All of them got fines (150 euro each) and the foreign activists were deported from the country.

We call upon everyone who is against the NPP in Belarus to the active protest against such a construction. So much for walking the same root year after year, so much for sitting at home discussing the impudent authorities, go out onto the streets, inform the others about the dangers of the atomic power engineering, use direct actions after all. If they don't ask for our permission for the NPP construction, why should we ask for permission to protest?

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