Defense lawyer Hanna Bakhtsina visited Belarusian blogger Eduard Palchys aka Jhon Silver in Zhodzina remand prison on Wednesday.
“I visited Eduard, he is safe and sound and doing well. According to him, there are normal conditions in prison, he is treated well, he has no complaints. He only asked to say thanks to all the people who support him, journalists in particular,” Bakhtina said.
“I never sought publicity, never wanted and do not want to be a political prisoner. I just expressed my opinion about a threat from Russia and its possible infringe against integrity, sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Belarus,” the lawyer quotes Palchys.
According to her, Eduard Palchys doest not admit his guilt.
Jhon Silver created 1863x.com, a blog dedicated to the current political developments in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, as well as Belarusian history and culture. The unsigned materials sharply criticized the regimes of Alyaksandr Lukashenka and Vladimir Putin.
According to Silver, two criminal cases were brought against him in 2015 for his activities in the blog – for allegedly inciting ethnic strife (in particular, for the article ‘Kill the Russian World’) and spreading pornography.
The blogger decided to hide in Ukraine. All the while he lived in Kyiv, from where he continued to work on the blog. But when the blogger went to a meeting in Russia in January 2016, he was arrested and put in jail. At the beginning of 2016 Sputnik i Pogrom, an extreme right-wing Russian organization, reported that the real name of the ‘Russophobe from Belarus’ is Eduard Palchys.
Some weeks ago Palchys was transferred from Russia’s Bryansk jail to Belarus.
The blogger may face up to five years of imprisonment for ‘inciting hatred’ and up to two or for years in jail – for allegedly distributing pornography, the Belarusian Investigative Committee states.
“The defendant, who was a website manager at 1863x.com, posted information pieces which contained signs of inciting ethnic hatred, as well as images of pornographic content, which is confirmed by expert examinations,” the Committee says.
On June 9, activists held an action of solidarity with Palchys-Silver near the predetentio in Valadarski street in Minsk.
