Syarhey Kalyakin, leader of the Belarusian Party of Communists (BPC) and co-chairman of the United Democratic Forces, was briefly detained by police on Wednesday over the distribution of flyers containing information about the opposition coalition’s Anti-crisis Platform near the main entrance checkpoint of the Minsk Tractor Works.
Mr. Kalyakin and Henadz Kesner, a staff writer of the private newspaper Novy Chas, were arrested while the former was passing out the flyers and also copies the BPC's newspaper Tovarishch.
"Police officers kept me in their vehicle for 40 minutes, supposedly to identify me," Mr. Kalyakin told BelaPAN. He and Mr. Kesner were then taken to the Partyzanski district police station. They were released without charges, but the printed material that Mr. Kalyakin had was seized.
Activists of the United Democratic Forces filed applications for permission to put up 450 pickets in 50 cities throughout Belarus on September 30. Only two pickets, one in Mahilyow and one in Polatsk, were permitted to be put up.
The Anti-crisis Platform consists of three sections. The first section assesses the current economic situation in the country. The second one proposes high-priority measures to be carried out within three months and the final section deals with the guidelines of a new economic policy for a period of between three and five years. The platform prioritizes the balanced development of the economy and calls on the government to speed up the introduction of information technologies in the economic management system.
