Journalist Beaten in a Night Attack at Activist Patrol in Kurapaty
Ales Kirkevich, journalist of Novy Chas newspaper, was wounded by a club hit at 4 am at the place where activists protest against construction of an office building on the venue of Stalinist mass killings.
For the last few days, several political and civil activists have been protesting in Kurapaty, the place where presumably at least 30 thousand people were killed in repressions between 1937 and 1941. Recently, the public have learnt that the borders of the guarded area had been moved, and local authorities sold a part of land for constructing the office building.
At 4 am, February 23, around 15 masked people attacked the group of protesters, which were 10 by that time, and beat the protesters with wooden sticks, shouting some strange slogans. The attack was very swift, after which the assailants ran away into the nearby forest. Ales Kirkevich suffered a cut wound on the head, luckily, no other serious wounds were inflicted.