BPF Youth Council: Smilevich’s expulsion is politically motivated

The BPF Youth Council condemns the decision to expel Hanna Smilevich from the BSU Institute of Journalism. Then decision is politically motivated since the young woman had no problems with her studies before heading BPF Youth, the authors of the appeal said. Smilevich has failed three exams of the winter session and has been expelled from the university.

KGB asked BSU teachers if Smilevich was the head of a certain organization and wondered what her attitude to BPF and BRSM was before the examination, the organization noted.

“The expulsion is a rude violation of the academic freedom pointing at the absence of autonomy at Belarusian state universities and at their total dependence on the ideological line. I reality, the university administration makes decisions based on the orders pronounced by ideologists and special services,” the authors of the statement believe.

Ex-leader of the BPF Youth Yuras Lukashevich was expelled from the history department of BSU in 2017. He has been unable to return to the university since then.

Hanna Smilevich, 18, became the leader of the BPF Youth on December 24, 2017. She was a second-year student of the BSU Institute of Journalism.