Two Jewish men detained in Minsk for 72 hours without being charged
One of the men was released late Tuesday night; the other remains in detention after being arrested in a police operation ahead of Sunday's election.
By JEREMY SHARONBelarus President Alexander Lukashenko(photo credit: REUTERS)
Minsk police detained two Jewish men on Saturday and held them in prison for close to three days without charges or contact with family members or lawyers.Artur Raisky, 25, and his friend Albert Kengerli were taken to Prison No. 8 in Zhodino, about 50 km. outside of Belarus’s capital, without any provisions and without their families being contacted by law-enforcement or legal officials.According to Rabbi Grisha Abramovich of the Religious Union for Reform Judaism in Belarus, the mothers of the two men called numerous police stations and installations to determine the location of their sons.The mothers traveled to the prison on Tuesday to transfer some supplies to the young men.Raisky was released without charges and without a court hearing on Tuesday night, while Kengerli remained in detention.The two men met in downtown Minsk on Saturday night. After buying some fast food, they were detained by police for no apparent reason.Friends of the two men speculated that they were detained during a broad police operation to intimidate young voters ahead of the presidential election, which took place on Sunday.According to the Visna human-rights group, at least 36 people were detained in the operation.Prison No. 8 in Zhodino can hold 350 prisoners. It reportedly was already full on Saturday night, but another 400 detainees were brought there on Sunday night.Although Raisky is Belarusian, he lives in Moscow with his girlfriend, Alla Gutnikova, 22, who told The Jerusalem Post he returned to Minsk to vote and be present for what he believed would be a critical moment for his country.
“Artur was worried about the future of his country, so he took some vacation and went there for a couple of weeks to see family and to be there, because he knew something was going to happen, and he said it was important for him to be there at this time,” she said.Both Raisky and Kengerli were active in the Jewish community in Minsk, formerly serving as coordinators for the Netzer Reform Zionist youth movement and in other communal leadership roles.Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko has been in power since 1994 and is the only post-Communist-era leader the country has had.