Trial of political prisoner Eduard Palchys to be held behind closed doors


The reputed Belarusian blogger Eduard Palchys started to be tried in Minsk City Court on December 6.

Blogger Eduard Palchys
Photo: belsat.eu

At the beginning of the hearing, Palchys refused to stand up and asked the judges’ recusal , but the request was denied.

“I cannot consider it a trial,” said the defendant.

The case is considered by judge Pyotr Arlou who took heed of the prosecutor’s demand and ruled to hold the trial behind closed doors. The decision was made in order to „prevent the distribution of extremist materials“.

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Eduard Palchys is charged under four articles of the Criminal Code:

  • ‘Incitement of hatred by a group of persons with grave consequences’ (Part 3 of Article 130);
  • ‘Preparation of mass riots’ (Part 1 of article 293);
  • ‘Preparation of actions that grossly violate public order’ (Article 342);
  • ‘Calls for actions detrimental to national security’ (Article 361).

If found guilty, the blogger may face up to 20 years of imprisonment.

The Belarusian Investigative Committee openly admits that it wants to punish the blogger for his activity on the Internet:

“Palchys’s main weapon was the Internet resources he created and managed, including a Telegram channel and pages on social networks.”

By the ‘organisation of mass unrest’, the committee means the announcements of the place and time of protests. By ‘harm to national security’ — publications ‘aimed at destabilising the situation in the country, artificially inflaming tensions and confrontation in society, to facilitate the subsequent seizure of state power’.

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In the autumn of 2020, amid the post-election protests in Belarus, Eduard Palchys was about to leave the country, but he did not show up at the place from which he was supposed to be taken to the border by a driver. In late September, his wife Viktoryia Palchys wrote about his disappearance on Facebook. In October 2020, Eduard was first put under administrative detention for 30 days, then made a criminal suspect. The Belarusian human rights community recognised him as a political prisoner.

A few years years ago, the blogger and founder of the 1863x.com was considered as a prisoner of conscience for the first time. Under the pen-name Jhon Silver, he published articles criticizing the Belarusian and Russian authorities on his website. After being detained by the Belarusian KGB in 2015, he moved to Ukraine. In January 2016, however, he was arrested in Russia and later extradited to Belarus.

Eduard Palchys was charged with inciting hatred on grounds of race, nationality, religion, language, or other social affiliation (Art. 130-1 of the Criminal Code). Having examined his publications, human rights activists did not find any extremist signs in them. In October 2016, Minsk City Court announced the verdict on his case and sentenced him to 1 year and 9 months of supervised release; the blogger was freed in courtroom.

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