On the eve of the celebration of the Freedom Day (Proclamation of the Belarusian People’s Republic), in the end of the working day on Friday, 22 March 2019, Siarhei Rymasheuski, younger brother of the BCD co-chairman, was summoned to the Belarusian Investigative Committee. The reason, according to the investigator, was the murder case of a girl in 1989. Siarhei Rymasheuski was questioned on 25 March 2019 in the Investigation Committee and the investigator took a non-disclosure subscription from him. Vital Rymasheuski also called to the Investigative Committee. 

Taking into account the fact that at the time of 1989, Vital Rymasheuski was thirteen years old and his brother was eight, it is obvious that there is a political order to exert pressure on the BCD Co-Chair and his family on the eve of the anniversary of the founding of the Belarusian People’s Republic. 

In addition, on 24 March 2019, Vital Rymasheuski, was seized by plain-clothes officers on Kiev square in Minsk during the festive concert-rally in front of his young daughter and wife. He was not given the reasons for the detention, brute force was used. After some time, Mr. Rymasheuski was released. 

Belarusian Christian Democracy declares that this and similar facts is the beginning of the presidential campaign of Alexander Lukashenka – before the presidential election campaign, preventive repressions against opposition leaders and activists are now unfolding. 

We call the attention of the international community to the inadmissibility the methods of inhuman influence on the opponent politicians through their families, as well as to the absurdity of the reasons for putting pressure on Vital Rymasheuski and his family members.

We demand the immediate cessation of repression against the BCD co-chair and his family.

Also on 24 March 2019 a well-known political activist Zmitser Dashkevich was arrested without explanation of the reason and with the use of brute force and taken away in an unknown direction. This took place on the playground of the concert-rally dedicated to the Freedom Day 2019 in front of Dashkevich’ family (pregnant wife and two small children).