Minsk City court upholds sentence to man who defended protesters from plainclothes police

Today Minsk City ourt has reviewed the cassational appeal by Svyataslau Baranovich who was sentenced to three years of imprisonment in a medium-security penal colony.

The Minsk resident came to the attention of authorities after defending protesters from policemen in civilian clothes during spring protests against the so-called ‘parasite’ law in 2017.

The higher instance has upheld the previous sentence.

Opposition politician Pavel Sevyarynets, representatives of the Belarusian Social and Democratic party Syarhei Sparysh and Valyantsin Trokski showed up at the hearing to support the convict, but Baranovich was not taken to court.

“When someone attacks innocent people, not everyone has the courage to resist. Therefore, we do admire those people who are ready to stick up not only for their ownfriends, but for unknown people, even knowing that they might be put in jail for years. And although the Belarusian law formally gives you the right to self-defense, everyone understands that if your opponent is a law enforcement officer, it is always you who will be guilty. These attempts to turn compatriots into slaves will trigger the collapse of the regime. Belarusians have patience, but it has its limits,” Pavel Sevyarynets told Belsat.

Last year, on March 15, Svyataslau Baranovich defended the representatives of the anarchist movement from the plainclothes people who attacked the young men in the trolleybus at the Bangalore Square after the ‘non-parasites’ rally. According to Baranovich, he several times struck the unknown people dressed in black. Although the incident took place in March, Baranovich was detained only in October. Initially, he was prosecuted for “hooliganism,” but later his case was re-qualified for another article – “violence against an employee of internal affairs agency.”

The prosecution said that Baranovich had knocked down a riot policeman, Artsyom Paulau with several blows. Notably, Paulau was also dressed in black civvies and had no insignia. Although the defendant pleaded guilty and the affected party had no complaints against Baranovich, the judge convicted him of the crime.

• Ex-political prisoner who grabbed protesters back from police facing trial
• No political prisoner status for man who defended protesters from ‘attackers in black’?
• Svyataslau Baranovich sentenced for defending anarchists from policemen in civilian clothes

Belarusian human rights defenders have not arrived at a consensus over the verdict yet. the Human Rights Centre Viasna and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee have already said they will not recognise Baranovich as a political prisoner as the offense committed was of violent nature. However, the participants of the forum Freedom To Political Prisoners said they would definitely consider him as a prisoner of conscience. A group of human rights activists is going to ask the PACE to study the case Baranovich and treat him like a political prisoner.

belsat.eu