Interpellation concerning the Dispersal of a Meeting in Daugienava

From the members of the Sejm of the Belarusian Club to the Minister of the Interior, concerning the police dispersal of a deputies' report meeting in the town of Daugienava on 8 May 1924.

On 8 May of this year, in the town of Daugienava, Vileika county, the deputies Fr. Ad. Stankievič and Ant. Aŭsianik organized a report meeting. Because the local population came to the gathering in great numbers (there were more than 2000 participants), the meeting began in the market square. During the speech of the second speaker, the deputy Fr. A. Stankievič, foot and mounted police appeared and began an attack on the people, who were conducting themselves entirely calmly, trying to disperse the meeting. The police, armed with rifles and drawn sabres, began to attack the crowd, which, understanding perfectly well the illegality of the police's actions, quite rightly repulsed these police excesses and forced the police to respect the right of those attending the meeting and to desist from its attempt to disperse it.

Afterwards, when this conduct of the police was being clarified, it turned out that the Daugienava police had received the order to break up the meeting from the Vileika starosta, and the starosta from the Government Delegate in Vilnia, who, in giving the order, supposedly relied on an existing circular of the Ministry of the Interior forbidding deputies' meetings in the open air.

For this reason the undersigned ask the Minister: 1) Has the Ministry of the Interior really issued a circular forbidding deputies' report meetings? 2) If so, on what grounds did the Ministry issue this circular?

Warsaw, 5 June 1924.