Political Propaganda Instead of Hearings (photos)
The Minsk citizens came to the meeting with the Piershamayski District Administration leadership to publicly ask questions about the social and environmental problems of their city district. However, people had to listen to the monologue of the local authorities.
Mikalai Kotau, the District Executive Committee head, told about the measures on the improvement of the arrangement of the officials’ work with the population, about the measures on the improvement of the district residents’ housing conditions, and about rapid change of employees of the housing and utilities services.
When the district residents tried to ask questions about specific problems of their district – such as the elimination of the Sievastopalski Park, the liquidation of kindergartens, or the excessive construction development at the Kalinina street – the District Executive Committee head evaded the answer effectively and changed the topic of conversation.
“Do you have questions? Then, write them to us on the pieces of paper. We will answer to everyone privately afterwards”, the district head declared.
Kotau had no difficulty in setting the tone of discussion due to the fact that the possibility to speak from the tribune was given exceptionally to the representatives of the local authorities – namely, to the chief state health inspector, district militia head, and education department head.
Chief state health inspector, having read the lecture on the flue and acute respiratory viral infection prevention, didn’t miss the opportunity to boast about the district’s ability to maintain the high quality of drinking water during the last decades. Naturally, he kept quiet about the shutting-in of the very wells in the Sievastopalski Park which provide this drinking water. The citizens tried to raise this issue at the meeting.
The Movement for Freedom (the MFF) activists were also present at the citizens meeting. The MFF actively helped the interested residents of the district to collect signatures, draw up official appeals to the responsible persons, and provided other organizational support.
The meeting participants tried to tell the officials about the trees being sawn in the Sievastopalski Park, about the shutting-in of the drinking water wells, and about the laying of the heating main in the recreational area for the construction of the multistoried buildings. The interested residents of the district think their park is the lungs of their district and the protective barrier which prevents harmful influence of the Termaplast factory.
The District Administration head rejected all claims with the following thesis: “the hamlet-type outlook would turn our city into jungle”. Не said that Minsk will develop and expand, among other things, at the cost of the free land bits of this district. In his violent speech, Kotau seemed to forget the head of state have recently declared the need to limit the growth of the capital’s population.
People asked the Piershamayski District Internal Affairs Office head unpleasant questions about the lack of patrolling at night-time, about the problem of public alcohol consumption near schools and kindergartens, about the impossibility to reach the militia office by phone (no one answers the phone) when such need arises, about the problem of capital repairs of the houses, and about the deficit of the Belarusian language schools and classes. The officials – being rather experienced in rhetoric – gave usual formal answers to all these questions.
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