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Focus: Human Rights |
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Politically active lecturers, historians, and university employees who challenge the status quo are subject to a wide variety of measures from university authorities to curtail their political activities or limit the focus of academic inquiry. These measures, usually in the form of reprimands or warnings, serve to ensure that state university lecturers know that active participation in the political opposition threatens their livelihood and their position. Subsequently, a significant number of lecturers have moved from state to non-state institutions, either through the firing of the employee from the state institution or on the employee's own initiative. Nevertheless, while non-state institutions may be free from government interference in their day-to-day running, the private universities are under no illusion that they are autonomous entities. Non-state universities avoid politically sensitive subjects and, for example, actively dissuade their students from publishing a student newspaper for fear of attracting the attention of the state security services. In a telling example of the reach and influence of the state in the non-state university sector, several lecturers with whom a Human Rights Watch researcher spoke who had made the switch from state sector to private declined to give interviews, even under a guarantee of anonymity for fear of negative repercussions. One senior lecturer anxiously sought guarantees that a casual conversation with a Human Rights Watch researcher on the general condition of academic freedom in Belarus would go no further.
Politically active lecturers on fixed-term contracts in state universities a Human Rights Watch researcher spoke to expressed the fear that their political activity may result in their contracts not being renewed. Politically active tenured senior lecturers, who are reelected to their posts by their colleagues every five years expressed similar fears that their activity would negatively influence their reelection. Although this election is by secret ballot among staff, university staff with whom a Human Rights Watch researcher spoke made it clear that university authorities pressure them to influence the outcome against politically active members. One senior lecturer told Human Rights Watch that his full housing allocation - a privilege of the job - had been denied him because of his active opposition political activity. Privileges are clearly an easy tool with which to pressure faculty into conformity. Rectors in non-state universities are pressured by telephone by the government to ensure their staff conform and steer clear of opposition politics or to dismiss or demote particularly active or well-known lecturers.
Politically Motivated Dismissals
Liubov Lunyova
Liubov Lunyova is an independent human rights activist and correspondent for the Belarusian Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.83 She co-founded Minsk Spring 96, a nongovernmental human rights organization, where she worked until January 1999. From 1992 to 1998 she was a lecturer on a fixed-term contract in ancient history and the middle ages at Belarusian State University (BGU) in Minsk. She lost her job there in 1998 and has essentially been barred from teaching, most likely, as described below, for her activism, in particular, for organizing demonstrations.
In early January 1998, worried that her contract was soon to expire, Lunyova approached the dean of the university who reassured her that her contract would be renewed. However, within weeks Lunyova lost her job and subsequently was unable to gain employment in the education sector. She explained what she believes were the political motives behind this:
[T]he history department is very politically active, and a large number of students go to demonstrations. Since I am a human rights activist, all the students who are summoned to the dean's office came to me in the history department for advice. I also attend all of these demonstrations and walk in the front row, and moreover, I organized a couple of demonstrations, for example on December 10 - International Human Rights Day - which was shown on TV, and naturally when I went to work everyone commented that I was so open inexpressing myself and that I have no fear. A journalist from the [London] Times said to me "Strange that you are involved in such actions and you haven't been fired." I said, "well, yes," and a month later I was.84
When she approached the dean of BGU to demand an explanation, Lunyova recalled:
He said that he couldn't do anything, there was "no work" although he had a good relationship with me. The personnel department told me that there was money to fund two positions. Many lecturers came to me when I said that I was leaving, took me by the hand, and said that they sympathized. The men said that they admired me but they were afraid themselves, they have families, children.85
Lunyova later learned that despite being told there was no work, the department has since hired a number of new lecturers. She explained that her dismissal was not just the end of her employment at BGU, but that in effect her career in education could be over.
Our female students were working in school number 156 on Yanki-Mavra street and they called and asked me to come. I went to the school and they said to me, "We'll take you first thing tomorrow, we need someone." I went to meet the director of the school. The director said "If I give you a job, then I'll be fired within half an hour." He apologized for a long time and said that he has no political opinion and . . . said that he would call me, but didn't, because I think he is afraid. I understood that the education system is a closed road for me.86
Myacheslav Grib
Following the dissolution of the Thirteenth Supreme Soviet in November 1996, Myacheslav Grib, former chair of that body, worked as a lawyer until he was banned from doing so by the government in July 1997.87 He is currently secretary of the Central Committee of the Social-Democratic Party, Narodnaya Gramada (People's Assembly), and head of its international relations department. On October 1, 1997, he started work as a lecturer in law at the Institute of Law, teaching criminal law and criminal procedure to second- and third-year students. A semester passed without incident, but at the end of 1997 the rector of the Institute of Law called Grib to his office and told him, "We need to decide something, because they are making my life impossible." Grib remembered:
In the beginning there were no problems, because I hadn't advertised the fact that I was teaching at an institute, but it was impossible to keep that secret because the students studying there talked about who was teaching them. Then there was talk and this reached the presidential administration. [The Institute] received inspection after inspection, from the tax inspectorate, from the Ministry of Education . . . In the end [the government] said to the rectorate, "If you continue to employ [Grib], we will close down the institute." I didn't want to put my interests above the interests of the institute, so that the students and lecturers would suffer. I said that I understood, gathered my papers . . . and left.88
The education sector is closed to Grib, who is now unemployed:
I am not working at the moment, because I can't find a job . . . In principle I could work as a lecturer . . . when I started to teach, other institutes found out, and I received three or four invitations to work in my sparetime . . . But as soon as I started to teach - inspections, inspections and blunt conversation . . . As soon as I was dismissed, all the invitations evaporated.89
Mikhail Pastukhov is a lecturer in law at a private higher education institute in Minsk and a vocal critic of the government. He is the director of the Law Center for Media Protection at the Belarusian Association of Journalists in Minsk. Following his dismissal as constitutional court judge by the president in November 1996, Pastukhov was invited to head the department of theory, history of the state, and law. Upon acceptance of the post, Pastukhov was told by the rector that "we know your political convictions, and the only thing we ask is that you do not openly express them in front of the students or the lecturers of the institute."90 Pastukhov subsequently taught a general legal theory course from January 1997.
Pastukhov then wrote a critical article, published in the independent newspaper Svaboda (Freedom) on the third anniversary of the 1994 constitution.91 He told Human Rights Watch that "after the publication of that article, the presidential administration rang the dean of the institute. The dean of the legal faculty had a conversation with me along the lines that it isn't worth speaking out that harshly, so I would take this into account in my activities. It was said to me in the form of a warning."92
Pastukhov later accepted an invitation to join the legal department of the opposition National Executive Committee (NEC). In April 1997, the independent newspaper, Narodnaya Volya (The People's Will), published a full-page article on the NEC which included photographs of its members, including Pastukhov, and short biographies. Pastukhov said the repercussions were immediate:
Literally the next day after publication of the article, the dean summoned me and we had a conversation. He said that the presidential administration had called and they strongly disapproved of the article and of the fact that I had agreed to it. That article in the press resulted in my being asked by the professors of the department to give up my direction of the department to become simply a lecturer. That was in April 1997. I agreed and started to work as a lecturer in the department. Subsequently, the rector and dean asked that I did not show myself in political activities, write any sharply critical observations about the current authorities and, thank God, since then there have not been any further consequences for me.93
Pastukhov said rectors of non-state or private universities are subject to regular calls from state authorities demanding that the political activities of staff be controlled or suppressed:
Although non-state institutions of higher education are not subject directly to the organs of authority, nevertheless the authorities have a real mechanism of influence on the leadership of those institutes. The rector receives all the calls which are made from the organs of authority concerning our lecturers. These calls may compel the rector to modify lecturer's assignments or to pressure lecturers to change the way they associate themselves with colleagues and with students. I try not to touch political questions or express my political convictions.94
Leonarda Mukhina is the mother of student Aleksandr Mukhin and is politically active in the BPF.95 She is also a teacher at high school number 37, the last remaining Belarusian language school in Minsk's Central district. According to her account, on March 13, 1998, just under two weeks following the arrest of her son for writing political graffiti, Mukhina became aware of a letter, allegedly from the parents of the pupils she taught, complaining that she was using her lessons to indoctrinate their children with her political viewpoints. Shortly thereafter, Mukhina was reportedly told by the school's director and by the director of studies that "the parents" no longer wanted her to teach their children. Mukhina told Human Rights Watch that the parents later came to her defense, and said "that I was absolutely satisfactory, that they were happy with the level of education that their children were getting, therefore they are categorically against my being fired."96
At a subsequent meeting, which a senior school administrator attended, a group of parents demanded to see the letter parents had purportedly written complaining about Mukhina's teaching, which he failed to do. Mukhina later brought a civil suit against the school's directors for slander and in defense of her professional honor and dignity. On April 23, 1998, Judge Zlobich rejected her claim, and on May 28 the Minsk City Court upheld his decision. As of this writing, Mukhina continues to teach at school number 37.
Mikola Antipovich is a senior lecturer in philosophy at the Belarusian State Polytechnic Academy in Minsk. On May 16, 1997 he co-organized an opposition meeting on the central Yakub Kolas square in Minsk. According to Antipovich, the meeting took place peacefully, without incident and concluded on time. However, some young participants of the meeting subsequently left the square en masse and walked on the sidewalk toward the presidential administration building, an incident for which authorities later tried and convicted Antipovich. He gave the following account of what happened:
[The demonstration] was on a Friday . . . on the Monday I went to work, I had classes. I went to the fourth floor and by the auditorium I noticed that there were some unfamiliar people standing there who were older than the students. After I went through to the auditorium, they came over and one showed me some documents of the Presidential Administration Guard. He said to me "You must come with us." I said, "You do not have permission from the procurator. I have classes to teach, I can't go, I am at work." They then said, "All right, we will wait until the break." Literally fifteen minutes later, a laboratory assistant from our department came and said "Nikolai Vasilevich, the police have come for you." Then uniformed police came: a captain and two sergeants. "We are arresting you." "What for?" "For the meeting which you organized and for an illegal march." "There were no problems with the meeting." "No, we are arresting you." They took me away. It was in view of the students in the auditorium. It was a seminar, there were approximately eighteen students. I took my briefcase and left. They took me to the police station and flung me in a cell. It was at about 9:00 a.m., I sat there until 1:00 p.m., whereupon I was put in a different cell with different drunkards. Around 3:00 p.m. myself and the other organizer who had been arrested earlier were tried at the Soviet district court and fined 25 million rubles [approximately U.S.$962]. That's an enormous fine. At that time, a senior lecturer earned 2.5 million a month [U.S.$96]. The most interesting thing is how the university reacted to it all.97
On May 21, 1997, Antipovich received a strict reprimand for "violation of academic discipline" for leaving his class in the auditorium when police arrested him. Antipovich told Human Rights Watch that the rector told him that he was obliged to inform the rector the reason for his absence at the time of his arrest, something he claims he was clearly unable to do. In addition to the fine levied by the court, the university fined Antipovich 1 million rubles [U.S.$38] for absenting himself from his duties. A December 24, 1997 appeal court hearing acquitted Antipovich and rescinded the 25 million ruble fine. However, the university refused to rescind either the reprimand or 1 million rublefine. When asked of further negative consequences resulting from the reprimand, Antipovich told Human Rights Watch:
You feel the after-effects every minute. That does not mean that you will be fired by order, they do not do that. The quiet Soviet mechanism is at work here - continual pressure, that you distinctly feel all the time . . . The consequences of that demonstration influenced my passing through the reelection process - there were a huge number of votes against me, a member of the academic council. It has created a poor general opinion of me. It has developed to the point that when work assignments are distributed . . . the dean can consider that "better not to give it to him." There's that variant. You can be left practically without any work, they just don't want you. There is always the moral pressure. Here there is a very subtle calculation that such pressure and such insecurity will demoralize a person. It's worse than a reprimand.98
Ivan Saverchenko, a senior research associate who runs academic programs at the Academy of Sciences and director of the independent Institute of Statehood and Democracy echoes Antipovich's fears of quietly being denied work opportunities as a result of his political activities and opposition to state policy on academic research. He told Human Rights Watch:
If I continue in a similar vein, saying that I disagree with the policies in the fields of education and knowledge then I believe that I will just not be included in the next project. They will say that the projects are not priorities and I, as a participant am not needed. The level of qualification does not matter. I could be left without a penny to live on altogether.99
83 See also, "Turning Back the Clock," a Human Rights Watch short report, New York, July 1998.
84 Human Rights Watch interview with Liubov Lunyova, Minsk, April 7, 1998.
87 See also, "Turning Back the Clock," a Human Rights Watch short report, New York, July 1998.
88 Human Rights Watch interview with Myacheslav Grib, Minsk, April 6, 1998.
90 Human Rights Watch interview, Mikhail Pastukhov, Minsk, October 28, 1998.
91 Following Svaboda's closure by the government in November 1997, it recommenced publishing in February 1998 under the name Naviny (The News).
92 Human Rights Watch interview, Mikhail Pastukhov, Minsk, October 28, 1998.
94 Human Rights Watch interview, October 28, 1998.
95 See also, "Turning Back the Clock," a Human Rights Watch short report, New York, July 1998.
96 Human Rights Watch interview with Leonarda Mukhina, Minsk, April 7, 1998.
97 Human Rights Watch interview with Mikola Antipovich, Minsk, February 9, 1999.
99 Human Rights Watch interview with Ivan Saverchenko, Minsk, November 3, 1998.