Hrodna Sole Traders Rallied On Square: “We Want To Work!”
- 22.02.2016, 15:31
Another protest rally against the Decree №222 was held on the square in Hrodna.
Last Monday, during the protest rally in Lenin Square in Hrodna, sole traders agreed to hold another rally for cancellation of the Decree №222 on the same place in central city on Monday, February 22.
Today on Lenin Square one hundred persons gathered again. It was raining, and many people were saying that it was a hindrance for more people to gather, Radio Svaboda informs.
They were standing near the monument to Lenin for more than an hour, just talking to each other. Only in the end of the rally they started to shout loudly: “Work! Work!” Journalists were asking what had brought them to the square, and people answered that they push for cancellation of the Decree №222, and everyone told about his or her resentment:
– We want to work, we want to be allowed to do so, – a woman of pension age said. – My daughter cannot find job for more than a year already, and now I am not allowed to work, too.
– We want to work, pay taxes, as we have families, children should be sent to school every day with something, and we have to exist somehow anyway. Look, there are mostly women here, and we have to rally on the square.
– And I am a pensioner, but I cannot survive on this pension, as medicines are expensive, the utility bill was almost Br1 million, and nothing is left for living. But we, sole traders, do not ask the state for anything, we only give in the form of taxes and different payments. We give job places to so many people working in market places, but no one looks at that. We have only one request to the authorities: let us work.
In the conversation with young people we ask what had brought them to the square. A young man says that their life reminds the cloudy sky on that day, and there is no break in sight:
– We want to show our authorities that for them to think it over once again, how many people are to become unemployed now. All of us have families, children, don’t anyone of our authorities understand that?
– In addition to not having work, we would have to pay the tax for “social parasitism,” – a young girl said. – What is going on in general, could anyone explain me? How can we live in the future, young and old? It seems that they are going to kill those sole traders.
– One wants to eat every day, – a middle-aged man added. – Either tasty food or not, but we want to eat. And we want to feed our families. But we fail, and not because we do not want to work, but because someone is very stubborn. We have been idle for about two months, we have almost spent up everything, and what’s next?
After standing about an hour in the rain, sole traders started to chant: “Work! Work!”
At the meeting in central Hrodna on February 15 sole traders decided to gather every Monday until the moment when their demands are fulfilled. Over the week some sole traders resumed work despite the absence of the necessary documents, and they do not have means of subsistence any more. A part of sole traders continues the strike.