English

Young opposition activist Artur Finkevich to get different job

Artur Finkevich, a young opposition activist serving a restricted freedom term in the Mahilyow region, will be given a different job.

The administration of the correctional facility that controls him has ordered that he resign from a janitorial position at a kindergarten. "The administration probably decided that seven months with the kindergarten was enough for me," Mr. Finkevich told BelaPAN. "Everybody had gotten used to me there. I was among my own there, and they treated me well. Someone just wanted to give me a different job."

Mr. Finkevich has been assigned to work with a state-run construction organization. "I don't know where I'll be working, it is not clear yet," he said. "This organization has operations in Mahilyow, in the Mahilyow region and in Shklow. But I haven't been assigned to the construction site for a newsprint factory in Shklow, contrary to what some media have reported."

Mr. Finkevich noted that he would continue to be attached to the Mahilyow correctional facility. "A bus will take me to work," he said. "There is no information so far that I may be transferred to a prison or to Shklow."

Artur Finkevich was given a two-year restricted freedom sentence in May 2006 on a "malicious hooliganism" charge for spray-painting "We want a new one [instead of Alyaksandr Lukashenka]!" on a building.

This past spring he was denied a release on parole.