Minsk Maskouski Borough Court Sentences Mikola Tsiatsiorkin and Pavel Znavets to Five Days of Jail

According to RFE/RL

Minsk Maskouski Borough Court sentenced the member of the Central committee of Belarusian Social Democraty Party (Hramada) Pavel Znavets and the activist of the party Milola Tsiatsiorkin to 5 days of jail for participation in the events of 2 March. They were tried in absentia. On 2 March they escorted to the Palace of Culture of Railway Workers the leader of their party Aliaksandr Kazulin, who tried to register there as a participant of the so-called All-Belarusian National Assembly. During the detention with participation of the notorious colonel Paulichenka the riot police smashed the glasses to Mr Znavets.

Tsiatsiorkin and Znavets applied to the procurator’s office with the demand to bring a criminal case and punish the policemen, who, in their turn, composed reports against these activists. At first Minsk Maskouski Borough Court refused to consider the case. Mr Znavets said: ‘We received a paper from the chair of the court, where it was stated that the form of the reports that were composed by the police was wrong, they contained no date, stamps, etc. That’s why these reports were considered invalid and sent back to the police. The policemen recomposed the reports, and then were quickly judged in absence. Now the local police inspector phones me and says: there are criminal charges against you. I ask him: where are they from. He answers: from Maskouski borogh court.’

The court assets the subpoenas were sent to both members of the party, but the latter ones answer they haven’t received any and were quite surprised to find out they had been sentenced to 5 days of jail. Now Mr Znavets is going to complain against the sentence.