Last four figurants of the ‘case of fourteen’ to be tried 23 May

23 May the trial in the case of participants of the protest rally of market vendors is to continue in the court of Tsentralny district of Minsk.

As the Charter’97 press-center has found out, decrees of the court about appointing the court session for 23 May, 9.30 a.m. were handed to Pavel Vinahradau, Mikhail Subach and Maxim Dashuk in the court of Tsentralny district of Minsk.

The fourth accused, Alexander Barazenka, is abroad. Judge V.Yesman is to consider the case.

‘The case is to be judged by another person. The lawyer says that different judges give different sentences in analogous cases. That is why it is a mystery what the verdict will be. We shall do our best to protect our rights. I am an individual entrepreneur. I shall demonstrate all the facts that individual entrepreneurs addressed the Constitutional court and asked Lukashenka’s decrees to be explained to them, that successive steps had been done, but we had not been heard. So we were forced to take to the streets,’ commented Mikhail Subach.

Reference:
About 5,000 market vendors took part in the protest rally on 10 January. The activists stood trial for participation in that rally. Businessmen protested against discriminatory decrees of Alexander Lukashenka and blocked the Independence Avenue. 14 opposition activists are tried for participation in this action. 10 of them have already received different sentenced. The youth activist Andrei Kim has been sentenced to 1.5 years of imprisonment in a colony by the court of Tsentralny district of Minsk. Mikhail Pashkevich, Aliaksei Bondar, Artsiom Dubski, Mikhail Kryvau, Ales Straltsou, Ales Charnyshou and Tatsiana Tsishkevich have been sentenced to corrective labor at their employment place. They are to give to the state 20% of their salary. Anton Koipish and Uladzimer Siarheyeu were fined 3.5 million rubles (about 1 643 US dollars) each. The verdicts were delivered by Judge Alena Illina.