Brest Regional Court turns down appeal by Biaroza defenders

On July 14, the Brest Regional Court considered an appeal by Biaroza human rights defenders Tamara Shchapiotkina and Siarhei Rusetski, as well as local civil society activist Tatsiana Tarasevich. The claimants asked to reverse the decision of the Biaroza District Court, which confirmed a ban on a picket scheduled for March 25. They also urged the court to send the case for a new trial by another judge.

However, the Regional Court saw no grounds to cancel the ruling of the Biaroza District Court.

According to the human rights defenders, the trial lasted for a total of about 10 minutes. Judge Alena Khotska rejected the defenders’ repeated request to hold a linguistic examination of one of the objectives of the picket, “protesting against the deployment of Russian troops in Ukraine”, which was the basis of withdrawal of permission from the Executive Committee. According to the executive committee’s lawyer Yauhen Kashtalian, this point was labeled as extremism by the executive committee officials. Earlier, a motion for a linguistic examination was dismissed by Judge Alena Niamtsova of the Biaroza District Court.

Both courts were not going to find out the names of officials who 24 hours after the issuance of permission to stage the picket and three days before the event saw extremism in one of its objectives.

Tamara Shchapiotkina, Siarhei Rusetski and Tatsiana Tarasevich intend to continue appealing the ban to national courts, and if necessary to the UN Human Rights Committee.