How Mother Nature exposed one Gulag mass grave

Reblogged with permission from Global Voices.

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By Kevin Rothrock

Sergey Parkhomenko, a Russian journalist and publisher, has worked as a reporter, an editor, a radio show host, and more. He is also immensely popular on Facebook, where he has more than 133,000 subscribers.

A man of generally anti-Kremlin views, Parkhomenko challenged his social media audience on November 2 to tell him if they know the history of a Russian town called Kolpashevo. He received more than 5,000 responses—most of them saying no. Five hours after polling his readers on the subject, Parkhomenko wrote on Facebook again, telling a story very few Russians, it turns out, have ever heard.

This post has attracted more than 12,700 “likes,” more than 13,000 shares, and more than 1,200 comments. RuNet Echo reproduces that text below, translated into English.

Sergey Parkhomenko. Photo by Evgeniy Isaev

Well what do you know. Five thousand people answered my impromptu survey in my last post. I asked if my readers can tell me anything about a place called Kolpashevo, located in the Tomsk region. Or if they knew anything about a particular place inside Kolpashevo: the Kolpashevsky Ravine.Colleagues at [the human rights organization] Memorial assure me that Kolpashevo’s history is well-known, has been written about many times, and is all over the Internet. In the 90s, moreover, a small book was even published on the subject.

Of the 5,000 people who responded to my Facebook post, however, only 30 or 40 said they know about the history behind the town. And most of these people live in the Tomsk area (or used to live there), so they know the history from their relatives and their neighbors… The rest answered: no, don’t know, never heard of it.

So now I can go ahead and tell the story.

The town of Kolpashevo (home to a little more than than 20,000 souls, according to the latest census) sits on the high bank of the Ob River. The water makes a turn at Kolpashevo, and every year it “eats away” a few feet of a sand cliff there, inching closer and closer to the homes on streets named after Lenin and Dzerzhinsky [the founder of the Soviet secret police forces]. This is how it’s been for as long as anyone can remember, and everyone in town is used to it.

Location of Kolpashevo in Siberia

On April 30, 1979, exactly one day before May Day, the Ob’s waters knocked down another six-foot chunk of sand from the riverbank. Sticking out from the newly exposed wall were the arms, legs, and heads of people buried there. A cemetery at least several yards wide had been exposed. The people had been packed in and layered tightly. The top layer of bodies were decayed almost completely, while the lower layers were very well preserved, mummified in pure sand. It’s said that you could easily see the clothes they were wearing, and in some cases you could even make out the faces. There were men and women of different ages, and there were children. All in civilian clothes.

Some of the skulls from the uppermost layer rolled out from the sandbank, and little boys picked them up, put them on sticks, and started running around the town, scaring passersby. Soon the whole town was aware of what had happened. People started gathering at the sandback. Some thought they could even recognize one person’s coat, or place another person’s face… The police and neighborhood watch volunteers then cordoned off the whole thing. Then, very quickly (literally within a few hours), they built around the crumbling sandbank a thick fence.

The next day, the Communist Party staged gatherings all throughout town, at various enterprises, and in the so-called “red corners” [the Party meeting areas of factory floors]. The Party’s activists began to explain to the population what they’d been told by the Party’s district committee: buried here were traitors and deserters from the war. But the explanation wasn’t entirely convincing. Why was everyone dressed in civilian clothes? What were the women and children doing there? And from where, for that matter, did so many deserters come in a town of just 20,000 people?

Kolpashevo via brizzz on panoramio.com

Meanwhile, a bit more of the sandbank slipped into the river, and it became clear that the burial site was enormous. There were thousands of people. People around town recalled how there used to be a prison on these grounds in the late 1930s. It was general knowledge that there were executions there, but nobody could imagine just how many people were shot. The perimeter fence and barbed wire had long ago been dismantled, and the prison itself was closed down. Even the prison house had been moved to another location farther from the disappearing coast, to a place where it served for many years as a dormitory for students at a technical institute.

In fact (to the knowledge of few people in the town), Kolpashevo’s prison operated a full-fledged assembly line of death. There was a special wooden trough, down which a person would descend to the edge of a ditch. There, he’d be killed by rifle fire, by a shooter sitting in a special booth. If necessary, he’d be finished off with a second shot from a pistol, before being added to the next layer of bodies, laid head-to-toe with the last corpse. Then they’d sprinkle him lightly with lime. This process repeated, until the pit was full. When that happened, they filled in the hole with sand, and moved the trough over a few feet to the side, and began again.

And so the river bank continued to recede and bodies were falling into the water and drifting all the way to the town. People watched this happen from the shore.

Update on labour rights in Eastern Ukraine

Pavel Lisyansky (left) with protesting workers at the Amstor supermarket in Severodonetsk. Photo from the Nihilist web site.

In this interview, Pavel Lisyansky of the Eastern Human Rights Group gives an update on efforts to defend workplace rights in eastern Ukraine, as military conflict continues between the government and Russian-backed separatists.

Pavel is a trade union activist and humanitarian rights campaigner in towns near the front line with the separatist-controlled territory, which runs through the industrial areas of Donetsk and Lugansk. The interview was published on 2 November in Russian on Nihilist.li, an anarchist web site based in Kyiv. Thanks to Hryćko Čornyj for this translation.

Question. [Please update us] on two labour disputes: the hospital in Svetlodarsk that landed in a bureaucratic “black hole”, and the shopping centre in Severodonetsk that is trying to force workers to leave their jobs without severance pay. Is there any news about these two episodes? Are you aware of other instances of labour rights violations in recent months?

Workers’ meeting at Svetlodarsk hospital

Pavel Lisyansky. Regarding the hospital at Svetlodarsk. [After a major battle at Debaltsevo in February, the hospital, on the Ukrainian side of the front line, was cut off from the local government administration, which was on the other side. Despite the urgency of the life-saving work of more than 100 staff, they have not been paid for ten months because local authorities failed to resolve the bureaucratic “black hole” into which the payments had fallen.] The government did not hear the voices of the workers. The salaries have not been paid and hospital funding has not been restored. The problems are the same: winter, cold. But the medical staff do not give up. At a meeting of the trade union committee the members decided to hold protests and organise a walk from the [military – HČ] front line to the regional state administration in Kramatorsk. […]

Regarding Amstor [supermarket – HČ]: the employer has adopted harsher tactics and forbade the use of heating in empty premises. [Managers want to dismiss workers, who are refusing to leave until they receive months’ worth of back pay they are owed, and severance to which they are legally entitled.] People have taken sick leave en masse. […] I also began to receive phone threats. The situation in this instance is more difficult, because in order to fight against such an unscrupulous employer one must set in motion all sorts of workers’ rights mechanisms and levers of influence. Frankly, it’s difficult to get through a brick wall of labour lawlessness, even together with the whole workplace collective.

Regarding the Elektropribor (Electric appliance) factory in Privol’ie: that was a case of non-payment of wages, but we actively worked there and were able to solve the problem quickly.

There are massive problems for the mineworkers in Ukraine. At each mine there is a different case of workers’ rights being violated. The same thing among public sector employees: at almost every workplace there are violations of workers’ rights. The schools in Svetlodarsk were also affected by the nonpayment of wages, but we were able to help them. There’s a whole list of violations of labour rights, and the instances of these are growing exponentially!

Q. What is the situation at your mine in Lisichansk?

PL. The situation is very near to critical: the wages are being paid, but with delays. We have managed to establish a dialogue with the employer. But here we have to fight with the traditional trade unions, who see me as a competitor, because they use workers as a cash cow to make money. They began an aggressive campaign against me, which is absurd: one group of trade unionists is fighting another, in the meantime neglecting the rights of the workers. I had to leave my job at the mine and settle for an elected post of chairman of the local trade union organisation, virtually as a volunteer – this was the only way I could save the local organisation to fight for the rights of workers. I actively support all workers employed by the company (i.e. the mine), irrespective of which trade union they belong to. Rights activists, like doctors, offer treatment without asking about political convictions or affiliation to other unions.

But this is difficult to understand for the old guard of the Ukrainian unions; they are used to make money from miners. I know what I am talking about: already at my age I have been employed at nine mines in different regions of Donbas. They [the old guard at traditional unions – HČ] already smell of earth; they have forgotten what workers’ struggle is, and maybe they never even knew it. They do not give way to young, active workers. For them the concept of “young” is someone who is 50-57. This, they think, is the right age to start leading a trade union organisation. There are, sometimes, good people who want to help the young, but they, unfortunately, are unable to go against this system.

This is why I decided to become a workers’ rights advocate – a lawyer for the workers. After all, there are lawyers serving the mafia, corporations, oligarchs – so there should be for the workers. I want to dedicate my strength and energy to defending and protecting workers’ rights, not to fight inside trade union structures about god-knows-what.

Q. Tell us about the case of the illegal dismissal of an employee [at the mine], who was later branded a “drug addict”. How did this situation come about? How was this “addict” treated by his colleagues?

PL. He simply came to be disliked by his boss, so the latter found a reason to do away with him and said he was a drug addict. Then the machine of administrative lawlessness went into motion: the personnel department issued the dismissal order; the security guards, like an unleashed pack of dogs, were set upon him. But the boss did not take account of one thing: this was a member of our union, and we can respond to the administrative tyranny, even by resorting to similar tactics, if necessary. As a result, the worker was reinstated. We consulted and decided to get him transferred to another mine in the same production association, in order to protect this worker from further attacks. Now we are actively working to remove that manager from his post.

Q. Whose situation is worse in the Donbas: the public sector workers (medical staff, teachers, etc) or those who work in the private sector? Who is more likely to be mobilised to stage a protest; who is more motivated? Do the two groups differ in terms of their respective arsenals of methods of struggle?

Protesting shopping centre workers

PL. It’s diverse. If, for example, we are closer to the [military – HČ] front line – it’s the public sector workers; if it’s a bit further from the line – it’s the private sector workers. The situation at the moment is such that it is easy to mobilise all workers whose rights are being violated. They’re simply going hungry. All financial reserves have run out. The prices have risen; the wages are unpaid; the war has instilled a greater sense of indifference toward death, and therefore people feel they have nothing to lose. They need to feed their children – but with what money? This is one of the main factors that helps to mobilise at the moment. And the employers in this environment are like drug addicts. They see that they can tighten the screws a bit more, so they keep tightening to see how far they can go. But this junkie-employer forgets that the thread in the screw will eventually break, the intoxication from the drug will pass, and then he will soberly shudder. But it will be too late.

The arsenal of action is the same for all: protests, letters, lawyers, trade unions, etc. But the people of Ukraine have been entrapped. They have been divided into different unions pitted against one another. Some union leaders have been bought by the state or the oligarchs, and, when necessary, pitted against one another in a different way. The workers do not have their own political representation or lobbyists. And serious human rights advocates are not especially interested in the problems affecting the workers (such work does not receive grants from major donors). So it is, that Ukraine’s workers today are acting like a group of disorganised deserters, tearing in every direction without any sense of what to do.

Q. How much has the situation with labour rights worsened because of the military action? Are there any improvements now, during ceasefire?

PL. In short: no. It has not changed. The situation is still severe.

Q. Tell us a few words about yourself, the Eastern Workers Rights Group, and your plans of action for the near future. Thank you!

PL. What can I say? I come from a family of workers. I’m a fourth generation miner. At the age of 19 I lost my father – the main authority in my life. I have barely recovered from this shock. After my father’s death, the company where I worked with him started to denigrate me, pay back “debts” owed to my father through me. (My dad was a true workers’ leader in Antratsit; this is a well known fact. [Note: Antratsit, which is in the separatist-controlled territory, was the site of worker protests last year. See here]) My dad had, as I now have, many enemies. It was then that I realised that there is nobody else in this life who will ever stand up for me. I went through a moral turning point; I started to fight for my own rights, and to defend other vulnerable people like myself.

Then I was involved in trade union work at the university and, later, at workplaces. I saw with my own eyes the shortcomings of the traditional unions and the lack of any defence of the workers’ rights in Ukraine. I was hugely disappointed in the actions of one of the leaders of the trade union movement in Ukraine (I won’t mention his name) and had a great desire to protect the rights of people in the war zone. That was how in 2014 the Eastern Workers’ Rights Group was set up, in the sadly infamous city of Debaltsevo. The founders of this group are displaced persons and refugees who have been active near the front line in helping to restore and protect workers’ rights, fighting against injustice in the context of war. […]


See also:

• Eastern Human Rights Group site: here (Russian only)
• Ukraine: workers organise at the grass roots 
• NUM solidarity with besieged Ukrainian miners (January 2015) 
• War as a means of social control, by Gabriel Levy (October 2014)  
• Observer Ukraine (Marko Bojcun’s blog) 
• Ukraine Solidarity campaign 
• Ukraine: activist perspective
• A socialist take on the Maidan, and after  
• Ukraine adopts new 'slave' labour code 
• Vitaly Dudin's lengthy 'Ukraine’s labour reforms threaten workers' rights' for oDR from June. Says Dudin: "Soon, Ukraine's sole competitive edge in the European market will consist of having the lowest paid workers with the fewest rights." 

Russia intent on revising unfortunate history

Petr Pavlensky early on Monday in front of the FSB door he set alight

The message could not be clearer, in Russia history is decided by the state. The labeling of the legendary human rights group Memorial as a so-called 'foreign agent' underlines a process that has been going on for some time.

Last month the armed forces announced that they were setting up a unit which “will examine, first of all, the history of the Second World War, the facts related to the falsification of Soviet people’s victory in the Great Patriotic War and other events in the life and the armed forces.”

Official state media is publishing denial of the Holodomor, the "Terror-Famine", as Robert Conquest called it, ordered by Stalin that killed as many as seven million Soviet peasants, most of them Ukrainians, in 1932-33.

Approval of Stalin is on the rise both officially, even from the head of the Orthodox Church, as well as among Russian people. Nikolai Svanidze, a writer and historian whose grandfathers died in the purges, told the LA Times that Stalin restoration is as a rival to the West, "which is the context in which he interests Putin." Only two museums dedicated to the gulag exist. Writes Shaun Walker in the Guardian:

The Gulag is not ignored completely, but is “contextualised” in a way that plays down the horror and pairs it with the war, suggesting the two come as a package.

The deputy director of a new Gulag museum in Moscow told Walker that in remembering the Gulag “you can either put up a big portrait of Stalin and note goldmining achievements, or you can put up death rates and haggard faces." Unfortunately, she says, "more often it’s the former."

In an interview with XSoviet News, activist Alex Sinodov said:

People have the idea that Stalin solved problems. Stalin would take care of for instance the neighbours they don’t like. If you look at history the purges mainly took place within the military and government. During Stalin’s purges two percent of the general public were a target, but in the military and MGB (currently FSB) it was as high as 25 percent. If Stalin would be back then people believe that he would take care of parts of the government that they don’t like. Repression starts at the top of the government. As an example Stalin killed heads like Yagoda and Yezhov, the top people in the government suffered a lot.

I also think that by bringing Stalin back into society the Big Brother is watching you is brought back to life. Anything about Stalin also always really pisses off the opposition. That is a big difference between Stalin and Putin, Putin puts people who failed in high places, where Stalin would have eliminated them immediately. Putin doesn’t have control as Stalin did, I think the murder of Boris Nemtsov shows that. Kadyrov took care of Nemtsov, that probably wasn’t a direct order.

There are plenty of Russia though who are fighting back. Early on Monday morning Petr Pavlensky, the performance artists famous for nailing his scrotum literally to Red Square, set fire to a door at the FSB headquarters - the same HQ as the KGB. The door was personally designed by KGB Head Lavrentiy Beria (who Stalin called ‘my Himmler’).

The week before Russians had stood in the square outside the former KGB HQ to mark the annual day of remembrance for Stalin's victims. Thanks to Memorial, each participant had a piece of paper in their hand with the names of two victims, their ages, professions, and dates of execution. Now Memorial's branches in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, the Komi region and the St Petersburg branch discussed below carry a label which echoes the Stalin-era denunciations of alleged anti-Soviet spies.

Reblogged with permission.

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By Halyna Colnash

“A huge blow for all those involved in remembering the victims of the Soviet Terror” is how the decision by Russia’s Justice Ministry to forcibly add the St Petersburg Memorial Research and Information Centre to its register of so-called ‘foreign agents’ has been described. Arseny Roginsky, Head of the International Memorial Society, goes on to explain that RIC Memorial has put together a unique database listing the places where victims of political repression were buried. “No state or civic organization has such a list”, Roginsky stresses.

It was RIC Memorial that played an enormous role in uncovering the mass grave of victims of the Terror at the Sandarmokh Clearing, near Karelia. It was at this place from Oct 27 to Nov 4, 1937 that 1, 111 prisoners from the Solovky camps were executed as part of a killing quota. They included 290 Ukrainian writers, poets, intellectuals and scientists.

The Justice Ministry’s decision was announced on Nov 6, and came unexpectedly since the organization had been informed that they had two weeks “to refute the document confirming the check” and had only just received the document in question. The decision will certainly be appealed.

The Memorial Research and Information Centre was created by historian Veniamin Ioffe, who was himself a political prisoner in the 1960s. It was planned from the outset as a centre providing the research backup for the historical-archival commission of the Memorial Society. It now has archives, a library and the extremely important Virtual Museum of the Gulag.

After hours offline, the Centre’s site now has a statement explaining the Justice Ministry’s decision and the fact that this would oblige them to have a preface to all material saying that it had been pretended “by an organization fulfilling the functions of a foreign agent”. It states that it does not intend to use this label, but will continue all its projects and programs.

“We inform all those interested that the public activities previously carried out by the Memorial Research and Information Centre will be undertaken by the Educational Centre, named after Veniamin Ioffe Просветительный центр имени Вениамина Иофе.

Candles lit at KGB building in Minsk in memory of victims of Stalin's repression, Via Andrei Sannikov

The notorious law on so-called foreign agents came into force on Nov 2012, obliging non-commercial organizations receiving grants from abroad and engaging in what the law very loosely described as ‘political activities’ to register as ‘foreign agents’. The law was boycotted by a lot of civic organizations, so in June 2014 President Vladimir Putin signed into force a law which allows the Justice Ministry to forcibly include organizations on the register. This it has been doing ever since, targeting organizations probing and publicizing grave violations of human rights, or those probing the deaths of soldiers in Russia’s undeclared war against Ukraine, etc.

This is by no means the first attack on Memorial and organizations linked with it. There had been attempts to force ‘foreign agent’ registration in 2013 and then in Oct 2014 a major offensive was launched by the Russian Justice Ministry and the pro-Kremlin television channel NTV. The Justice Ministry announced that it was asking the Supreme Court to dissolve the Russian Memorial Society claiming to have found infringements in its organizational structure. See: Kremlin plays ‘extremist’ card against ’Memorial’ rights organization

There have also been repeated attempts over recent years to whitewash Joseph Stalin and the crimes of the Soviet regime.

On March 12, 2014, a decision was issued by the Inter-departmental Commission on State Secrets to keep the majority of Soviet secret police classified as secret for a further 30 years. This includes the vast bulk of material regarding the Great Terror of 1937-1938.

The drive which Putin initiated in 2007 to highlight the positive aspects of Russia’s history has already resulted in a record number of Russians viewing Stalin in a positive light, and in the first house-museum and monument to Stalin opening in the Tver oblast.

Soviet repression is at the same time being underplayed or denied. An example is seen in the fate of a vital museum on the site of the notorious labour camp Perm-36. The NGO Perm-36 which ran the museum has been driven from the museum and forcibly registered as a ‘foreign agent’. The museum has been taken over by the authorities, and, as a recent visitor wrote, the words ‘Stalin’, ‘dissident’ and Gulag are nowhere to be seen.

Graffiti on Memorial HQ, reads 'foreign agent'

Statement by chairman of board of Memorial human rights centre, Alexander Vladimirovich Cherkasov

On November 9 the Memorial human rights centre received in the post the results of the “Act of Planned Inspection” of our organisation (see excerpt below). The inspection from October 5 was conducted by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation for the city of Moscow. In this “Act” the Justice Ministry, among other things, puts forward a political accusation addressed to our organisation: “By their actions the members of the Inter-Regional Non-Governmental Organisation the Memorial human rights centre have undermined the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation, by calling for the overthrow of the current government and a change of the political regime in the country.”

What kind of “actions” are these? What do you have to do to incur such serious accusations?

It turns out that Memorial “undermines the foundations” by forming a negative public opinion “about the state policy that is being conducted by the higher bodies of state government, expresses disagreement with the decisions and actions of the mentioned institutions of government, the results of preliminary investigations and court verdicts that have been given in high-profile criminal cases”.

In the course of our human rights work we gather facts. On their basis, in the course of discussions within the organisation and in a wider circle we develop opinions and evaluations. We publish these materials – evaluations, opinions, factual materials and so on.

Thus we implement freedom of thought and speech and freedom of association, which are guaranteed to us by articles 28 and 30 of the Constitution of Russia. And we do not consider it appropriate to be silent if we see that representatives of the government – including the highest Russian authorities – are violating human rights and the norms of international law.

This, from the point of view of the Justice Ministry, is “forming a negative opinion” and “undermining the foundations”.

Since as examples of “undermining activity” the “Act” gives, firstly, our evaluation of Russia’s actions towards Ukraine. We indeed think that these actions come under the definition of aggression – in full accordance with the UN definition.

Secondly, we are accused of publishing “the opinion of leaders of organisations” about the fact that Russian troops have participated in combat actions in eastern Ukraine. But this “opinion” is also based on a multitude of irrefutable facts.

Thirdly, the Justice Ministry is upset by our disagreement with the unjust verdict given in the Bolotnaya case. Indeed, in our materials and in the materials of other human rights organisations, and in media reports, there is a multitude of proof that the charge in this case was fabricated and falsified.

But where are the calls to “overthrow the current government” here, which the creators of the “Act” immediately accuse us of? Obviously the Justice Ministry equates criticism of the government with attempts to overthrow it.

The Justice Ministry’s “Act of Inspection” which accuses us of “undermining” reports about political prisoners is dated October 30, the Day of Political Prisoners in the USSR.

The prosecutors’ “understanding”, which incriminates the Memorial human rights centre for maintaining a list of political prisoners and a register of people detained at demonstrations, on the basis of which we were included on the “register of foreign agents”, was given to us on April 30, 2013. On the 45th birthday of the dissident “Chronicle of Current Events”, which wrote about judicial and extra-judicial political repressions.

Symbolic coincidences

Since the Justice Ministry’s “Act” itself directly returns us to the times of the Soviet government’s battle against dissidents.

It is probably worth recalling the Constitution of Russia, the section “Foundations of Constitutional Order”, article 2: “The person and his rights and freedoms are the highest value. Recognising, observing and defending the rights and freedoms of the person and citizen are a duty of the state.” And then everything falls into place. It becomes obvious: it is not we, Memorial, but the Justice Ministry that is undermining the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation by its actions.

(Translation by Sarah Hurst.)


See also:

• Video about Last address a project in which ordinary people, in their own homes and in different cities, install plaques in memory of those for whom this address was their final one, marking the building from which a person was taken away to be put behind bars, and never returned. 
• The night Stalin tried to destroy the Belarussian nation
• Why has Komi Memorial Human Rights Commission decided to close down?
• Memorial Human Rights Centre recognizes Gennady Kravtsov as political prisoner 
• Moscow State University researchers forced to obtain FSB approval for publications 
• Russia says Poland, not USSR, was Hitler’s Ally and Responsible for Holocaust 
• Kremlin-funded Sputnik Int. claims West criticizes Stalin to weaken Russia & its leadership 
• Russia’s ’new approach’ to Stalin and extended secrecy about his victims 
• Stalin Museum: Putin’s Russia Immortalizes Bloody Dictator 
• Anger and Protest over Stalin Monument in Yalta 
• Stalingrad as latest step in re-glorification of tyrant 
• Russia Denies Stalin’s Killer Famine
• Russia's Gulag camps cast in forgiving light of Putin nationalism
• Stalin’s Englishmen: the lessons for today’s left

Ukraine adopts new 'slave' labour code

On Friday Ukraine, allegedly under the pretext of adoption of laws necessary for visa liberalisation with the European Union, adopted a new Labour Code of Ukraine that critics have dubbed "slavery."

This is the same parliamentary session where an amendment to the code banning discrimination was voted down because it included protections for LGBT people.

The Chairman of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (KVPU), Mikhail Volynets, commented on the adoption by the Rada (parliament) of the Code in the first reading:

Today in Parliament in favor of fleeting opportunistic deputies betrayed the interests of ordinary people - farmers, workers, civil servants and voted for slave labor code. The European Union demanded violate international standards and ILO Conventions. For all those who voted on this Labor Code, it will be difficult to explain the logic of their current actions and behavior. Parliament in the following list has no right to exist. Regions in the person of Michael Papiyev slipped authorities in candy wrapper shit - new draft Labour Code of Ukraine. They themselves did not vote for him, but the authorities and under the control of her faction showed their immaturity and indecisiveness.

In his speech to protesters (translation by the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign) Volynets said:

The adoption of this draft labour code will result in tragic consequences for working people, who are currently the poorest in Europe. Being under the crisis pressure and under the constant increase of costs for gas, heating, electricity as well as under the burden of constant food price increases, our fellow-citizens live in permanent fear of becoming jobless and being unable to feed their families.

At present the employers do not treat working people fairly and after the adoption of the proposed draft LC, they won’t have any obstacles to violate workers’ rights.

Let’s try to see what the authors of the draft LC have prepared this time for us. We outline below some “innovations” of Vladymyr Groisman, Liudmila Denisova, Mykhailo Papiev and Stepan Kubiv:

• The Employer is entitled to perform control over the employee’s work using the technical means (e.g. video).
• Also the employer is given right to transfer any employee to another employer. It is not difficult to guess that such transference would be coercive as the employee will have to agree on that fearing to lose his job. The term of the transference could be infinite as the Draft LC doesn’t foresee any time frames. Also the geography (territory) of the transference is also indefinite in the Draft.
• The reasons for dismissal of workers is broadened. For example, the disclosure of commercial secret. (salary amount discussed among friends – is it considered a secret?).
• In case the employee hasn’t done an immunization or hasn’t been medically examined he\she could be dismissed from work without a notice.
• Considerable pressure in the Draft relates to single mothers, and especially those who have minor children.

The list of the “innovations” could go on…

Thus we call for all people to come to the Verkhovna Rada building and say “NO” to the adopting of the Draft Labour Code. Only if we are all together we can prevent the slavery of the Ukrainians by not allowing the adoption of the Draft Labour Code.

The KVPU has written to the EU Ambassador that the new Code does not meet either EU or International Labour Organisation (ILO) standards. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), wrote to the Rada in July that the proposed Code was "inconsistent with the relevant international labour standards and the legal obligations of Ukraine."

"It is difficult to see any reason why this reform is being undertaken, in particular in such a hasty and non-participative manner," said ITUC.

See how many Rada MPs voted for new labor code that undercuts human rights. Giveaway of power to oligarchs. #Ukraine https://t.co/ATehmC6Rf4

— Tristan Masat (@tristanmasat) November 8, 2015

Trade unionists across Ukraine who could not join those rallying outside the parliament held local protests, such as this one at the port of Izmail. Many protested the law on social media using the hashtag #НіНовомуТрудовому.


See also:

• Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine (in English)
• Vitaly Dudin's lengthy 'Ukraine’s labour reforms threaten workers' rights' for oDR from June. Says Dudin: "Soon, Ukraine's sole competitive edge in the European market will consist of having the lowest paid workers with the fewest rights."   
• Oksana Dutchak: Unite or Fall: Labor Protests in Ukraine in the Face of the Crises (PDF)

Massive demo against sexist violence in Madrid

Cross-posted from Little Green Footballs.

‘We want to win the future. We want a country against sexist violence.’

This is very moving to see in both its size and the breath of support behind it.

Tens of thousands of people have marched in the Spanish capital Madrid to condemn violence against women.

The rally, organised by feminist groups, was attended by representatives of all the main political parties.

Activists dressed in black laid on the ground to remember hundreds of women murdered over the years in what they described as “macho terrorism”.

They said laws against domestic abuse should be extended to include all violence against women.

One estimate put the number of those who took part in Saturday’s march at more than 20,000, the BBC’s Tom Burridge in Madrid reports.

Trade unions and non-governmental organisations from across Spain also joined the event. Some participants reportedly flew in from the Balearic and Canary islands.

“I think it’s important that people like me demonstrate today, because I’m an example of a woman who’s been able to get out of domestic violence,” participant Olga Aranza was quoted as saying by the Associated Press television.

“And that means that all abused women can also get out violence and that they deserve a better life. You really can get out,” she added.

More: Violence against women: Madrid stages big protest march

Video tweets after the jump.

On LGBT rights Ukraine stuffs up again

In September Elton John traveled to Ukraine to tell the country's leaders to support LGBT rights. He spoke at a gathering of much of the country's elite at the invitation of one of its oligarchs.

John spoke of the need for 'dialogue', saying:

We have to have it because there is a revolution of acceptance and understanding happening around the globe. And for any country wanting to build a more tolerant society, you have to be a part of it.

Speaking, as he was to mainly businesspeople, he explained how equality was good for business:

Laws and policies designed to repress LGBT citizens and to keep people in the shadows hinder economic development. Such policies are detrimental to business and economic interests. They jeopardize the safety and well being of employees and workers.


Everyone listened politely and applauded him yet seven weeks later the Ukrainian parliament has rejected basic labour protections for LGBT people.

The decision is not just bad for LGBT people but kyboshes the relaxation of visa requirements for Ukrainians wanting to travel to the European Union - including LGBT non-discrimination is a basic requirement for the EU, although far from the only one.

The specific amendment received only 117 votes, with 226 needed.

According to Halya Coynash:

A suspiciously large number of MPs were absent, and many abstained, rather than voting against.

The Chair of the parliament's Committee on European Integration, Irina Herashchenko, condemned her fellow MPs behaviour on Facebook, writing:

Today, when the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the European countries should fulfill their commitment to non-discrimination and support the European norm about impossibility of any discrimination in employment, including on the grounds of gender identity or sexual orientation, started a real coven obscurantist. Our core values ​​- respect for the identity of this man! Respect! By the difference! And do not get into the personal lives of people.

The journalist and activist Maxim Eristavi wrote:

Serhiy Kaplin, MP, president's "Petro Poroshenko's Bloc": "I haven't voted because of my religious stance, also because our ancestors, Cossacks would just trample those people with their horses'

Pavlo Unguryan, MP, prime-minister's "People's Front": 'There's no discrimination of them. We, as the country with a thousand year old Christian tradition, just simple can't allow this'

Volodymyr Ariev, MP, president's "Petro Poroshenko's Bloc": "I took this sin. I voted yes. You can slap me around, but it was a demand for visa-free regime with EU. Everyone will answer for their decisions before the God in the end"

These comments show that the Western partners of Ukraine pretty much failed to communicate to local political elites what basic human rights protection means and why hate speech from a politician is not acceptable anymore anywhere in countries that call themselves civilized.

The possibility for introducing change via the courts was suggested on 20 October, by Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, "as we have in the Constitution clear provisions on the impossibility of discrimination." Though there is no indication that the government will support this.

It has been previously reported that the pressure to exclude LGBT from any anti-discrimination provisions is, unsurprisingly, coming from the Ukrainian Church. There have also been signs of pressure from international religious conservative forces and there may well be a Russian hand also at work.

But the bottom line is a complete absence of leadership from politicians.

In Ukraine little if any progress has been made on LGBT rights. There have been recent assaults on two community centres, in Kryvyi Rih and Odesa. Earlier there was the assault on the Kyiv Pride March.

We recently learned that the county's human rights strategy had been drawn up without any mention of LGBT people. 89% of openly gay people reported discrimination during the previous three years in a 2011 survey.

Some progress has been made in the way the state treats trans people.

In occupied Crimea and in the Donbas (where homosexuality has been recriminalised) of course the situation for LGBT is far worse. 

There have been questions asked as to whether the EU's position will hold. According to regional LGBT groups there has been a "lack of consistent and uncompromised commitment of the EU to human rights of LGBTI persons, non-discrimination, and respect of diversity in its cooperation with eastern neighbours."

According to a report put out earlier in September by the Equal Rights Trust on inequality in Ukraine:

LGBT rights have become a fragile off-shoot of a pro-European choice: “we’d rather have a gay pride in the streets of Kyiv than Russian tanks”, a Kyiv resident told the Trust.

Maxim Eristavi wrote last year about the spinelessness shown by the EU on LGBT rights in their negotiations with Ukraine - a fact which has gone unreported and completely undermines Russian propaganda.

Eristavi has also written about how gay people were part of the Maidan demonstrations that overthrew the corrupt government of Yanukovych. Eristavi counted seven gay people among the 'Heavenly Hundred' murdered by Berkut/Russian special forces. A number of people reporting on the military fight in East Ukraine have noted the presence of LGBT on the frontline as they condemned this parliamentary vote.

Never mind the rejection of basic human rights, it is shameful what Ukraine is doing to the memory of those who have fought and died for it.

Have Stop The War Coalition finally jumped the shark?

On Monday night the Stop The War Coalition (STWC) held a public meeting at the House of Commons - Syria: the case against military intervention.

Diane Abbott MP was the Chair. There were the usual suspects as speakers plus Tory MP Crispin Blunt, whose Foreign Affairs Select Committee had just delivered a report against any British involvement in Syria. Plus Alex Salmond and Caroline Lucas. Conspicuous by their absence as speakers were Syrians, the STWC refused to give any a platform.

Salmond's SNP did give a Syrian a platform, Dr Amer Masri, on stage at their recent conference (many in the audience wept). Praising this, the Syria Solidarity Movement (SSM) noted the STWC refusal this last Monday and that:

Nor were any Syrians invited to speak at Stop the War’s meeting on Syria for the Labour Conference fringe in Brighton; nor were any Syrians invited to speak at Stop the War’s meeting on Syria in Manchester. When Syrian civil society activists wanted to speak at a Stop the War meeting on Syria in London in September, they were told it was “not appropriate”.

SSM were also blocked from speaking at an April solidarity with refugees march - by STWC. This led to an apology from the march's organisers!

Last month Birmingham STWC dared to invite a speaker from SSM but were forced to withdraw the invitation and were told SSM 'backs imperialists'.

When SSM leafleted a "overwhelmingly white and middle aged" STWC conference in June they were insulted, and called in language which would make Kremlin propagandists proud "the pro-ISIS lot".

Yet they do not have an issue with some Syrians. In 2012 STWC platformed a Baathist and in 2013 the controversial nun Mother Agnes - which backfired when no one would sit on the same platform as her.

On Monday at the House of Commons, says Peter Tatchell:

Some Syrian victims of Assad's brutalities turned up anyway but were not allowed to speak. They eventually shouted out in frustration, turning the meeting into momentary chaos, as they were jeered by some of the audience and as STWC stewards tried to eject them - allegedly threatening that they'd be arrested. The police turned up soon afterwards.

Order was eventually restored.

When it came to questions from the floor, other members of the audience were asked to speak but not the Syrians.

Near the end of the meeting, I personally appealed to Diane Abbott to let the Syrians have their say but she refused and closed the meeting. 

Said Omar Sabbour:

Delores Umbridge

To wind down the clock to stop Syrians speaking, Abbot literally allowed a history lesson by an old man (who said the Arab spring..was a fiction) to drone on, the license given him was so long (initially before panel was challenged only quickfire Qs were allowed) that even the crowd started to scorn, whilst Abbot sat listening with her head resting on her hand with her Umbridge-like smile.

(Dolores Umbridge is a Hogwarts villain in the guise of a respectable middle-class English lady).

Sabbour claimed that STWC had called police, that STWC stewards had threatened him with arrest and that 'emotional' Syrians and other Arabs told STWC "you have become our oppressors." The raucousness of the meeting was live Tweeted by the BBC's Ross Hawkins.

Amr Salahi, an activist from the SSM, told James Bloodworth, Editor of Left Foot Forward:

Clara Connolly, an immigration lawyer and activist with Syria Solidarity UK, later told the STWC they were silent about Assad’s crimes but they didn’t care. I told the speakers they just wanted Assad to keep killing people. Clara kept trying to make the point to the speakers that they had nothing to say about what was happening on the ground. All she got in return was silence. Then some of the organisers went up to her and warned her that if she didn’t be quiet, she would be forced to leave.

Says Tatchell:

I was shocked, surprised and saddened by Diane Abbott's unwillingness to invite Assad's victims to express their opinions.  Not listening to victims of Assad’s war crimes is arrogant, insensitive and appalling. It has a whiff of ‘we know best’ and Syrian opinions ‘don’t count’.

You think?

Salahi said:

Syrians are not allowed to have an opinion about their own country. Only Westerners are allowed to talk about Syria.

Video emerged on the Thursday of what happened at the event, see it after the jump.

Yet in an increasingly angry back-and-forth on Twitter with Tatchell later on Monday evening STWC's Lindsey German flat out denied that any of these events had happened, calling the Syrians 'wreckers'. She even called the no-platforming of Syrians a, quote, "lie"!

The news from the meeting was the BBC saying that Labour Foreign Affairs Shadow Minister Catherine West (a speaker at the meeting) had promised to consult STWC on Syria policy, later headlined as Labour giving STWC a "veto". This was untrue, she had been addressing Syrians in the room, as confirmed later by Syrians present and by her in a statement.

But it was highly noteworthy that as she addressed this the Labour PR team directly undermined her by saying that, yes, they would consult outside the party, specifically naming STWC. Labour PR is now run by Seumas Milne, a prominent ally of STWC working for a party leader who used to chair the group.

West was later reported to have spoken to Syrians before the meeting and to have expressed great concern to them that they be consulted by the Labour Party, which she confirmed in a tweet - She clarifies she wants to consult Syrians then Labour PR (Milne) clarifies will talk to STWC. What does that tell you?

Peter adds that it was 'ironic' that STWC would put Tory Crispin Blunt on their platform when Blunt has said "he would support military action in Syria in certain circumstances."

Andrew Coates noted that Andrew Murray, another panelist and STWC Chair, is a leading member of the Communist Party (CPB) who "explicitly do support Russia "bombing" Daesh and backing Assad, explicitly!" Murray reportedly said at the Monday meeting that "only sovereign forces from Syria + Iraq" can defeat ISIS.

(See Andrew's post on Murray and STWC's 'confused' position on bombing.)

In a lengthy dialogue on Twitter the following day between myself and several others with a STWC treasurer, Stephen Bell, when pushed on why they refused to put a Syrian on their platform he claimed that all the Syrian solidarity groups support bombing, which is not true, and that STWC were within their rights to not give a platform to anyone who 'supports bombing'.

To which SSM member Mark Boothroyd wryly noted that:

if you haven't noticed Syria is still being bombed so your "victory" is meaningless for those actually affected.

The "victory" being claimed by Bell, of course, being news reports that Prime Minister David Cameron had delayed a vote on whether the UK would join in with bombing ISIS in Syria. This when Labour's Catherine West had explicitly stated at the meeting that it was Russia's intervention which had made the prospect of the UK's intervention "more remote."

But Bell's emotive, deliberately simplistic and repetitive statement that STWC would not give an airing to anyone who 'supports bombing' was contradicted not only by the presence of Blunt and Murray but also by Lindsey German herself who in her Twitter exchange with Tatchell said that STWC would not have "speakers who support intervention."

*Pic actually from German satire website

What 'intervention' might mean is, of course, something which the Syrian 'Stop The War' movement, Syrian civil society and Syrian socialists have widely discussed. There are a number of proposals, many of which, for blindingly obvious reasons, do not include 'bombing'.

Yet German could not have been more obvious in saying that STWC does not want to hear any of them and will, in fact, as long experience has shown, use their leading role to silence any Syrian who does not support Assad, whose crimes STWC always cover up. Of course she won't listen to Syrians when STWC continue to paint all opposition to Assad as Islamic fascists.

In a lengthy explainer - 'The Syrian Revolution and the crisis of the anti-war movement', do go read - Mark Boothroyd nails where the toxic politics which led to Monday's absurd scenes of so-called peace activists shouting down Syrian refugees comes from:

Too many leading figures in the British anti-war movement chose to view all these revolutions through their relation to the US/UK and its intentions. This approach erased the agency of the oppressed Syrian people engaged in struggle with the regime, and gave no responsibility to the role of imperialist powers like Russia in propping up the dictatorship. It served to obscure the complex reality of the multi-polar world system, split between competing imperialist powers, with no single dominant power overwhelmingly determining the course of events.

Instead of analysing the actual relationships of regional and global powers that were thrown into flux by the Arab Spring, the approach of the anti-war movement was shaped by a framework of Cold War power relations, massaged to fit leftist prejudices and domestic alliances developed during opposition to the “War on Terror” and Iraq War.

Syrian and pro-revolution Arab voices have been marginalised, while outright apologists for the Assad regime like George Galloway have been central to developing it and propagating the position of Stop the War.

Many, through social media, have this week witnessed the ugly true face of the so-called Stop The War Coalition in this rowdy silencing of Syrian voices.

It is to be hoped that this exposure does not get forgotten and that those drawn to them question harder how these people ever became leaders of the 'peace' movement. Already, Boothroyd notes, STWC inaction on supporting any solidarity with Syrians has alienated Muslims who have been engaged in humanitarian support.

However the news the following day was that another far-left project, 'Stand Up To Racism', which is a front for the Socialist Workers Party, has a 'Refugees welcome here' rally in London tonight. Thirteenth on the bill of speakers is a - faceless, nameless - 'Syrian refugee'.

S/he's inclusion is surely welcomed but plainly an afterthought.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

• Thanks for input from Peter Tatchell, Andrew Coates and Bob from Brockley.

Edited to add: I checked the timeline of 'Stand Up To Racism' after the event and they did not mention the 'Syrian refugee speaker' once. Though I did establish that the nameless refugee speaker was infact there, via, ironically, a SWP student tweet.

Edited to add: In an appearance on a BBC current affairs show on the Thursday Diane Abbott was confronted with a Syrian. Abbott denied she was a STWC member (she's a patron). Syrian refugee Muzna (@SyriaUK) asked Abbott "are we not worthy until we drown on your shores?" See the exchange after the jump.

Edited to add: Caroline Lucas MP has made the following claim: "I made the case several times during meeting that Syrians in audience should be heard, & raised with chair afterwards." Omar Sabbour said: “She stopped her speech when interrupted because she wanted to ‘listen to the Syrians’ but she then did nothing when Diane Abbot afterwards refused to let any of the Arabs at the back to talk.”

Lucas has responded to this claim saying "I repeatedly asked her [Abbott] to let Syrians speak, repeated it after meeting, & followed up with letter to [STWC]." That she asked for Syrians to be heard was confirmed by the SSM member who appeared alongside Abbott on the BBC. I have asked her to publish this letter to her website and will add once that happens.

Monday's events were criticised by another leading member of the Green Party, Rupert Read who wrote: "Well done @PeterTatchell. Shame on 'Stop the war' (sic.) for repeatedly refusing to let Syrians speak on..Syria..!" (Tatchell is a member of the Green Party.) Read "strongly agreed" with Tatchell's comment that "Greens need to review their links with Stop The War. Not drop them but be more critical where needed."

Edited to add: On the Friday the Stop The War Coalition responded with a bizarre post entitled 'Andrew Neil smears Stop the War', thus dismissing both the scrutiny from the left and Syrians and denying the facts as 'smears'. The documented dismissal of Syrian voices is called "organised disruption." They flat out lie that despite the video, despite the statement's of both Labour's Catherine West and the Greens Caroline Lucas, Syrians were not prevented from speaking!

The several reports on the behaviour of the stewards, including their calling the police, is dismissed as a "lie". Whoever called them the police arrived, so there's a simple way to find out if it is infact a "lie" that STWC called them - ask the police. Should we do that STWC? Over to you ...

Of interest is the fact that the first person they rush to defend ("Lie one") is their Chair, Andrew Murray. This is because this post's information on Murray, supplied by Andrew Coates, was raised by Andrew Neil on the BBC in his questioning of Diane Abbott. Again, they flat out lie that Murray's Communist Party and hence Murray does not regard Assad as "legitimate" and supports the regime's war, aka 'bombing'.

In order to back their claim that they solely face "diehard opponents on the left" in their opposition to UK support for civilian protection (rather than, as I have already covered, Syrian civil society and Syrian socialists) they fall back on the presence of a Tory MP

Are they rattled? Time will tell but the post ends in a classic of 'projection' - the Soviet and now Kremlin tactic of claiming that others are doing what you're actually doing - "The lies of our opponents testify only to their desperation."

Edited to add: Omar Sabbour has published a lengthy rebuttal to STWC's post. He notes that the meeting was filmed and that unedited footage will show who is right about both the STWC claims on Syrians being allowed to speak and on who called police. It will also show what was said from the platform and Sabbour in his rebuttal goes into detail on why STWC's arguments ("simply another form of Western narcissism and orientalism") are so wrong - do go read.

Edited to add: On November 12 Syria Solidarity UK published a rebuttal to STWC's post. They say that the fact that STWC "oppose any action against Assad ... puts Stop the War against Syrians who are being bombed by Assad." "This is why," they say, "Stop the War don’t want to listen to Syrians."

The group rebut the claims of three 'lies' by STWC, echoing Omar Sabbour.

Finally they criticise a piece by Matt Carr, published by STWC, which claimed that unfair and lying criticism of STWC was coming not just from the right but also from the left. They point out that Carr claims that Assad was not responsible for chemical attacks and that there is little evidence that Assad is popular, let alone Carr's. Finally they say:

Syrian civilians need protection from Assad’s mass murder. Stop the War have nothing to offer Syrians, and so they stop their ears.

See also:

• In Plain Sight: The Kremlin’s London Lobby
• Trying to destroy ISIS by only attacking it on the Iraqi side of the border makes no sense

• Syria Solidarity Movement's statement about Monday's meeting
• Planet Syria’s open letter to Stop The War Coalition
• Syria Freedom Forever: Open letter to the Stop the War Coalition (STWC), or real solidarity is needed! (2012)
• Seven reasons Stop the War are wrong about Syria
• That time STWC got intervention in Mali completely wrong 

• British forces could help achieve an ethical solution in Syria, by Andrew Mitchell MP and Jo Cox MP
• What Diane Abbott gets wrong about Jo Cox’s proposals on Syria
• The No-Fly Zone Debate  
• Until the Assad regime’s murderous tyranny is halted, the refugee crisis facing Europe will continue to worsen  

• + We have been here before ''Anti-war activists do battle over intervention in Iran"

The night Stalin tried to destroy the Belarussian nation

Reblogged with permission. 75 years ago today Stalin's NKVD massacred almost all of Belarus' literary elite - a genocidal act, still remembered in that nation.

====

By Paul Goble

Staunton, October 29 – Seventy-five years ago, on the night of October 29-30, 1937, Stalin’s NKVD executed more than 130 Belarusian writers, scholars, politicians and political leaders, the first stage in a purge unprecedented even in Soviet times that destroyed more than 90 percent of the Belarusian intellectual elite.

Among those who were killed and then placed in unmarked graves were Platon Holovach, Mikhas Charot, Ales Dudar, Vasily Koval, Mikhail Kamy and “many more,” Yevgeny Afnagel of Khartiya 97 writes in a commentary on this tragic anniversary (charter97.org/ru/news/2012/10/29/60634/).

Afnagel notes that Moscow sent a list of 103 “enemies of the people” to be executed, and the Belarusian communist leadership added several dozen more. He suggests that “in modern history, it is impossible to find examples of such a mass destruction of literary figures” on a single day.

Of course, he continues, “repressions in Belarus began long before this, from the very first years of the establishment of Soviet power.” But it was on October 29-30 that this effort “assumed a systematic character with the obvious goal of the final assimilation of the people and the liquidation of the Belarusians as a nation.”

In the days and weeks that followed, Afnagel points out, the NKVD “liquidated” Belarusian teachers, doctors and scholars, and in the years before the outbreak of World War II, it killed or sent to the GULAG “more than 2,000 Orthodox and Catholic priests.”

This ended “the relatively brief period of Belarusianization in the 1920s,” a time when many residents of the republic “began to recognize themselves as a nation with their own history, traditions and culture.” That wasn’t what Moscow wanted: it simply wanted to use them as an advertisement to Belarusians living abroad in Poland and elsewhere.

But the policy had consequences which exceeded and in fact violated their expectations: “Belarusian language schools were opened, textbooks, newspapers and journals were published in the native language,” and many Belarusians rose to positions of authority in the Red Army and the government.

“’Belarusianness’ became mainstream” and as a result it was “difficult to control.” According to Afnagel, “its result could become at a minimum an autonomous policy of the leadership of the Belarusian SSR and at a maximum, the genuine independence of the republic” from Moscow. To block that, the Soviet authorities dispensed with Belarusianization.

But that policy had done its work, and one of the consequences is that today Belarusians still, “after two or three generations” remember what was done to them on the night of October 29-30 and afterwards. Indeed, the memory of this action became “a catalyst for street protests” at the end of Soviet times and the successful drive for independence.

Belarusian historian Igor Kuznetsov has devoted his life to researching the destruction of the leadership of the Belarusian nation by Stalin and is certain that “sooner or later, a real court over Stalinist crimes will be convened in Belarus” (belaruspartisan.org/life/322444/).

Candles lit at KGB building in Minsk in memory of victims of Stalin's repression, Via Andrei Sannikov

Over the last decade, he says, “we have prepared and brought forward documented charges” about these crimes, “and although the situation in [Belarus] is most unfavorable from the side of the state … all the same we have completed this first stage,” working on it since 2006. He hopes that a real “Nuremberg” on the crimes of Stalin will eventually occur.

This evening, Belarusian activists plan to mark this anniversary on the Day of Memory of the Victims of Stalinist Repressions with a demonstration on Mensk’s Independence Avenue in front of the KGB headquarters.

• More pictures from October 29 vigil.