24 February, 2012On February 21 Belarus customs officers got Gennady Fedynich off the train, asked him to fill the customs declaration and conducted a thorough personal search. They found nothing illegal.
BELARUS: On Feburary 21 around 21:00 customs officers at the Gudogay station got REPAM president Gennady Fedynich off the train. REPAM is an IMF affiliate in Belarus.
Fedynich was on his way back to Minsk from Vilnius, where he met with his colleagues from Lithuanian unions. He was detained by the shift supervisor Alexander Voinovich. Fedynich and his female colleagues were asked to fill the customs declaration. They were also subjected to the thorough personal search.
"An extremely unpleasant story," said Fedynich in an interview to Praca-by.info.
"Both me and the women were stripped to the underwear. They found nothing, of course. And yet, they didn't even apologize. We were released only at 01:00 the next day. We were forced to go to Minsk by various other trains."
According to Fenynich, this speaks of the close attention paid to him by special forces.
"Apparently, they control my movements by monitoring my surname on the travel tickets. There's no doubt that the customs officers acted on someone's instructions. Such a thorough search is conducted very rarely," said Fedynich.
In May 2010 there was a search in REPAM's office in Brest (Belarus). The computers and office equipment were seized. They were returned more than a year later, in a non-operating state.
On October 26, 2011, on the eve of the IMF regional conference in Prague, Fedynich was detained in the Minsk airport. Thus he was unable to take part in the conference. On the following day, October 27, the delegates of the conference unanimously voted on a resolution condemning the actions of Belarus authorities against Gennady Fedynich.