Tsikhanouskaya’s election team volunteer gets three years of restriction of liberty
On October 12, Savetski district court of Minsk passed a guilty verdict in the case of 39-year-old Alyaksandr Dabryianik, an activist of Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s election team in the town of Slonim, human rights centre Viasna reports.
Dabryianik was arrested on May 24. He was charged with ‘organisation and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order’ (Article 342-1 of the Criminal Code). The arrestee was awaiting the trial in the remand prison. The Belarusian human rights community declared him a political prisoner.
According to the authorities’ version, the man took part in the Freedom March in Minsk on 16 August 2020. The prosecutor claims that Dabryianik partially admitted guilt, but the defendant stressed in his last plea that he had not blocked the streets and did not consider himself as ‘an active participant in the mass event’.
In addition, the defence says that the evidence of Alyaksandr’s guilt was indirect: he had no symbols, did not step onto the road and did not block traffic. Among the materials of the case there were phone photos of political leaflets, a photo of the newspaper Narodnaya Volya, a permit for distributing Narodnaya Volya from its editor-in-chief, a video about the events of the evening of August 16.
Judge Syarhei Shatsila sentenced Alyaksandr Dabryianik to three years of restriction of liberty in an open-type correctional institution and compelled the convict to pay off 5,988 Belarusian rubles to the city transport agency Minsktrans.
