Nine political prisoners appeared in Belarus in to days on the 22nd and 23rd of April 2008

Andrei Kim (22 year youth activist) was found guilty of the crime on articles 342.1 (organization and execution of actions that violate the public order or active participation in such actions) and 364 (violence or a threat of violence towards a militiaman) of the Criminal Code of Belarus and sentenced him to 1.5 years in prison. Aliaxei Bondar, Artsiom Dubski, Mikhal Kryvau, Mikhal Pashkevich, Ales Straltsou, Ales Charnysheu, Tatsiana Tyshkevich were accused of the breach of article 342.1 of the Criminal Code and sentenced to 2 years of freedom restriction and 20 percent of their salaries will be deducted by the state. Anton Koipish and Uladzimir Siarheyeu were charged with the breach of article 342.1 of the Criminal Code and fined with 100 “basic salaries” ($ 1650).
Judge Alena Ilyina of the Central district court of Minsk.
Public prosecutor - Andrei Ramasheuski of the Central district prosecutor's office. Claimant – Igor Sichev

All accused in “actions that violate the public order” didn’t admitted guilty. The accusation was built on testimonial evidence of militiamen and photo-video materials.

Grave violations took place during the trial.

- The principle of openness of a trial was breached roughly. Relatives, friends, and acquaintances of the accused demonstrators were not admitted to the court hall. It was the militia who decided whether someone could observe the trial. Photographing, filming, and recording were prohibited. Journalists could not attend the trial freely.
- The petition submitted by the accused who demanded to hold the trial in Belarusian was rejected, which violated the Belarusian legislation. No interpreter was engaged although many of the accused demonstrators had difficulty in speaking Russian.
- Most petitions by the defence were rejected unreasonably while the demands of the prosecutor Ramasheuski were met immediately.
- Only two witnesses out of more than ten presented by the defence were interrogated.

Moreover, the defence claims the guilt of the accused unproved which is verified by the following facts:

- Thousands of major and minor entrepreneurs took part in the action, but none of them was charged. All those accused are young people (20-28 years old), activists and leaders of opposition organizations. The defence explains this fact with the aspiration of the court to intimidate young people and isolate activists.
- The 5-hour long film which was demonstrated by the prosecution is in fact a long thoroughly rearranged video clip. The defence points to more than 280 obvious “attachment shots” throughout the film. Moreover, numerous episodes of several seconds and even minutes are missing in the film which makes it impossible to restore the actual events of that day. The way the video materials were arranged and included to the case is unacceptable and hence the video cannot be regarded evidence according to the Belarusian legislation. The origin of certain video materials and the way they were included to the case are unknown.
- Neither the film nor the witnesses’ testimonies prove the accused having taken an active part in the entrepreneurs’ demonstration. The witnesses saw most of the accused for the first time during the trial. They mostly recognized those whom they detained, but even then the witnesses could not say anything about what the detained had been doing before the arrest.
- Mr Sychou, Andrei Kim’s victim, pointed that Kim had insulted him and then hit his face with the right arm. Meanwhile, Kim is left-handed, and the video materials do not contain any shots with Kim talking to or beating anyone.
- Militiaman Sirach claimed he had been 1.5 m behind Kim and had seen him beat Sychou. At the same time he never appears in the film.
- Other witnesses for prosecution were uncertain about the time and place of Kim’s detention. The time noted in Kim’s protocol is 13.40, while he is accused of beating Sychou at 13.53.
- According to the testimonies of Andrei Kim and Darya Hutkova, when Kim was arrested on January 21 and kept in the Central district interior department of Minsk, unknown militiamen brought “victim” Sychou, pointed to Kim, and said: “It was him who stroke you.” Those were the testimonies that Sychou had given during the preliminary investigation. Later on he changed the testimonies, which was not considered by the court.

At the same time the witnesses’ testimonies prove that authorities are responsible for events of January 10 not demonstrators. Both the militia and municipal authorities had been aware of the mass action to be held but had not taken any measures to prevent mess.

On the 23rd of April 2008 the leader of Vitebsk’s entrepreneurs Syarhei Parsukevich was convicted to 2.6 years of imprisonment and was fined with 1100000 rubbles. The process was held in Moskovskiy district court.
Judge – Audzeenka Uladzimir.
Prosecutor – Syarhei Kunash.
Claimant – warrant officer Alexander Dulub.

Syarhei denied the charges and claimed that he couldn’t agree with the fact that Dulub is called “injured person” in the court.

The case against Parsukevich was tendentious from the beginning. Dulub passed the medical examination in the day of the incident. Parsukevich was not given such a possibility. No grievance or petition by Parsukevich were settled. If the investigation wanted to find out the truth it would find and interrogate the witnesses Parsukevich couldn’t find himself. The investigation also refused to adduce and to examine the cloths of Parsukevich. If they wanted to find out the truth they would open the case on the very first day of the incident. But only after Syarhei had been released and filed an application that he was beaten, and it became clear that he was not going to give up and on the 4th of March came to the investigator Syarhei was detained because of straight appeared suspicion. They didn’t let him pass the polygraph test, although Parsukevich asked about it from the very beginning of the investigation. No one saw what had happened in the interrogation room. Parsukevich and Dulub were the only present there. Witnesses for the prosecution (Iakimchik V, Salauieva V) work together in Okrestino prison. But though there are divergences in their testimonies. Witness Gorbachevskiy who served administrative arrest for stealing a bottle of vodka gave absolutely identical (word to word, comma to comma) testimonies as the witness Iakimchik.

We consider these sentences as unjustified and politically motivated and would like to ask for your solidarity with Belarusian political prisoners. Please undertake appropriate steps for to put pressure on the government of your own country by claiming effective politics for to achieve immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Belarus.