A monument has been erected in the capital of Belarus to the founder of the Soviet system of political repression Felix Dzherzhynsky

The monument is an exact copy of the figure of Dzherzhynsky which stood in Moscow in front of the KGB building until it was dismantled by participants in the democratic movement when the coup failed in 1991.

The opening of the monument in Minsk aroused protest from human rights activists and members of the opposition.

Felix Dzherzhynsky was one of the leading figures of the Bolshevik uprising in Russia and of the Bolshevik regime. He was the permanent head of the All-Russian Special Commission for fighting counter-revolution (the Cheka) and then the Central Political Department (GPU) and the United Central Political Department (OGPU) which were to be bodies of mass political terror, execution and suppression of independent thought..