A Young Front activist was expelled from school a day before his last

The educational department of Salihorsk executive committee has reached an illegal decision to expel one of the leaders of the Young Front, Ivan Shyla, from the secondary school No.4 of Salihorsk.

Ivan Shyla, an 11th form pupil, has successfully passed 2 final exams, and was to pass the third one (English). As said by the boy, on June 2 the teachers’ council studied his issue. It was proposed not to give a school-leaving certificate to him, and to expel the local Young Front leader from school. All teachers voted unanimously to allow him to sit for the last exam and to get the school-leaving certificate. But on Tuesday the situation changed. An extraordinary teachers’ council adopted a decision to expel the boy from the school. “On June 3, after a higher commission from Minsk arrived, all the 35 teachers who supported me unanimously yesterday, unanimously voted for my expelling based on my “activism and numerous detentions during street rallies. Teachers fear dismissal, as the commission from Minsk has already dismissed an experienced school master and forced his assistant to be quit the job too. After the session some teachers told me: “Please understand, Ivan, that either we or you are to become victims of the system…”

Ivan Shyla and his parents haven’t been officially explained the reason yet.

In order to prevent the leader of Salihorsk branch of the Young Front Ivan Shyla from passing the final exam, a police guard was sent to his school. “Today mourning I have come to school to sit for an examination. However, I was said I can’t sit for an exam. Police was in the school building just in case I put up a fight,” Ivan Shyla said to Radio Svaboda. “Nobody had warned me about my expulsion in a written form. It was oral information. I have been handed in a resolution on my expulsion. They refer to the Statute of the school and to laws. They say the last straw was the detention with stickers on May 30 (when school exams started). Another reason was my attendance of the presentation of the book “Thirst for spring”. Pictures of it were published on the web. Officials from Minsk were displeased by that. At the moment I am at school. All people in the school, all teachers, even those who voted for expulsion, understand me. A carpenter of our school, whom I do not even know, shakes my hand and says words of support. The reaction of all teachers who talked to me is almost the same,” the young man says.

Ivan Shyla states that if he won’t be given the school leaving certificate in the next few days, he will go to the court. “I will bend every effort to insist on justice”, the Young Front member Ivan Shyla said. “These events, when an illegal decision to expel me is adopted hurriedly, three days before school-leaving certificates are issued, which in fact deprives me of any chance to enter a university, reflect two things. Firstly, they want to demonstrate all people that a person could be deprived of a right to work or study in just a few minutes. They demonstrate their false “power”, to show a cautionary example” other young activists. And secondly, it is a confirmation that for the last 14th years people known for their committed activism and who are not afraid to openly state their political position, have been being pressurized constantly”.