Three years of restriction of liberty: Higher court upholds sentence imposed on elderly activist Alena Hnauk
On November 2, pensioner Alena Hnauk tried to appeal against the ruling of Brest’s Leninski district court which sentenced her to restriction of liberty for ‘insulting the president’.
Predictably, Brest Regional Court has left the decision of the court of first instance unchanged.
“The system continues to play a one-sided game, I had no illusions upon the would-be decision by the regional court, but I could not help taking the opportunity to get to town ( lately, it has become a challenge to me) and once again tell those ‘judges’ what I think of them and look them in the eye,” Hnauk told Belsat.
In the spring of 2021, Alena Hnauk was tried in the so called round dance case for ‘organisation and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order’ (Article 342 of the Criminal Code). Then, she got two years of restriction of liberty without being sent to a correctional facility. The trial was conducted by judge Ina Klyshpach.
Moreover, in early September, judge Zmitser Kurouski sentenced the activist another two years of restriction of liberty without being sent to a correctinal facility for ‘insulting the president’ (Article 368 of the Criminal Code). Given that she was serving the first term at the moment of delivering the sentence above, Alena Hnauk’s liberty is bound to be restricted for the total of three years.
Notably, a few weeks later, a her place was searched as part of a case regarding threats against Mikhail Bulyhin, a senior prosecutor at Brest City Prosecutor’s Office, who presented the state in September’s trial of Hnauk. The case was initiated over publishing the prosecutor’s personal data on one of the ‘protest’ Telegram channels; at the moment, Alena has a status of witness. In the course of the search, an old laptop, a pendrive and a mobile phone were confiscated.
belsat.eu
