Vadim Boyko is an antifascist supporter of FC Partyzan from Minsk. He was detained on March 22, 2016 together with other people on suspicion of participating in the attack on the right-wing hooligans that happened about two years ago. His trial is set for February 3, 2017 and we ask for financial support to pay the legal advice. The approximate cost of the legal aid for him is 5000 euros, part of which has already been covered by us.
(Eine Weiterleitung; Quelle: https://abc-belarus.org/?p=7253&lang=en)
Here is a full story.
FC Partyzan (former MTZ-RIPO) is an antiracist football club that doesn’t exist any more, while there are still some active groups of hooligans involved in street fights. As reported, on June 29, 2014 a mob of Partyzan supporters attacked a trolley-bus carrying a gang of right-wing hooligans of FC Torpedo. The attackers blocked the vehicle and broke a few windows. In the following days the police detained five Partyzan fans on suspicion of the attack, but they were eventually set free with no charges. The case was frozen.
On March 22, 2016 cops carried out a series of searched in the flats of Partyzan supportes and detained a few people. As a result three of the detained – Ilya Volovik, Vadim Boyko and Dmitry Tsekhanovich – remained in custody with charges of aggravated hooliganism facing 10 years in jail. Later Dmitry was released with travel restrictions, the other two remain in custody. At the moment there are 6 defendant to the case, including 2 former hooligans who were accused of selling drugs and allegedly testified against the others.
Meanwhile, the cops initiated another case against Ilya Volovik – leadership in an unregistered organisation, claiming that he was the leader of a hooligan gang. The case files count around 40 volumes and the process is expected to be long.
It should be pointed out that antiracist football hooligans are not always close to anarchists in any ways. Part of them shares patriotic, homophobic, sexist tendencies, and we wouldn’t like to support such people. At the same time we can’t close our eyes on the clearly political connotation of the case, since last year was rich in repression against both left and right-wing groups, no matter how politicised they are. A lot of antifascists and right-wingers were put in jail on charges of possession of drugs, distribution of pornography (posts in social networks) and illegal business in addition to ordinary street conflicts with each other. The new charge of participation in an unregistered organisation testifies to this, too.
We call all of you having the possibility to offer financial support to do so. In this case we only support Vadim Boyko, since so far we didn’t get any information testifying that he is sharing openly partiotic, sexist or homophobic views, also he is trying his best not to cooperate with the law enforcement, unlike some other defendants including those mentioned before.
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No money for nationalist hooligans
The self-proclaimed "anti-fascists" belong to Nasha Sprava, a nationalist hool group of Partizan Minsk, who share not only anti-authoritarianism, anti-imperialism, anti-communism and nationalism with the ethno-anarchist group Poshug, but also xenophobia, militant ecological anarchism, and a machismo, sexist, and homophobic straight-edge purity fetish. In addition, this campaign shows that the ethno-anarchist wing has won the intern battle against the anti-nationalist wing. Therefore, the current international campaign should be considered with caution. There is no need to deny any support for militant nationalists who call themselves anti-fascist.
More info in german is here https://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/203962
To the ABC Belarus
Belarus is a totalitarian state. People get jailed for nothing. Especially political activist or people who are stigmatised as oppositional. Also football fans became an aim for state repression – not only antifacists like Partizan Minsk fans but also fascist groups. So, its not right that only belarussian patriotic fanscenes were crashed by the police. Its also not right that russian patriotic fans are under a safety carpet of the police, like Nasa Sprava claimed in a statement on January 20th, 2017.
In Belarus Lukashenka is following two ways – on the one hand he‘s close to the Kreml administration and on the other hand since around 2014 / 2015 he tolerates the patriotic roleback. You can see this everywhere. To speak belarussian, long time prohibited, is mainstream and very popular. Also patriotic fashion with patriotic slogans and icons became popular especially for young belarussians. That’s why it’s not surprising that bands like the anti-communist and ethno-anarchist folkpunks from Dzieciuki and the patriotic agit-rock-band Brutto can play in big arenas. For example Brutto, by the way also close to the Partizan Minsk and the Arsenal Kyiv fanscene and their hooligans, finally will play 8 gigs in the biggest locations in belarus. And both bands are close to Nasa Sprava.
So, antifascists, nazis, nationalists and patriots under repression. In the „case of antifascists from minsk“ the authorities found a new way to crash structures and of course they will use it. And of course its important to documentate the way they do this. But it doesn‘t mean to support all the people who are suffering from that new repression wave. There's no rule to support also nazis, nationalists and patriots if they suffer by the same law. In the russian version of your statement about supporting the accused in the „case of antifascist from minsk“ you wrote:
So, the ABC declared strictly not to support people who are colaborating with the organs of repression. But all the defendants did it. All made a statement in court and talked about the fanstructure, told names of others not involved, gave informations about the structures. Also Boyko on the 4th day of the trial made a detailed statement how he became a partizan fan, how was the structure of the fanscene, that he was active in the hooligan firm New School Band, what he and others did. You documented his statement in an article in russian here. To summarize, he disclosed information about other people, about the structure and the activities of groups but you still continue to support him.
You declared August 2014 „that [the] Anarchist Black Cross Belarus will not provide financial and any further support for activists from organizations that promote nationalism in one form or another.“ That was a very important statement which made clear that you are still want to be part of a international and not a national-chauvinist movement. If this is still right you have to stop any financial or political support in the „case of antifascists from minsk“. Because the accused are ethno-anarchists, nationalists or just simple patriots. Especially Il‘ya Volovik and Vadim Boyko as members of New School Band are part in a ethno-anarchist, patriotic network of Partizan Minsk fans. At least since the statements of the defendants you know that but you still support them.
And of course you are a part of the big campaign „freedom for belarussian antifascists“ started by Nasa Sprava in spring 2016. on your russian site you are using their banner with three of the defendants. In your english statement for supporting the accused antifascists you have picked one of the defendants, the guy who‘s not so popular and not so obviously connected to Nasa Sprava.
So please follow your own statements. Do not support ethno-anarchist hooligans or campaigns which are connected to them because they are „activists from organizations that promote nationalism in one form or another“. And do not support people who in public „discloses information about other people”.