Minsk volunteers who packed food parcels for prisoners face criminal charge for ‘financing extremists’


Accusations have been brought against four A Country for Life volunteers detained on July 9 in Minsk, the foundation reports on Tuesday.

Маryna Dubrouskaya, Anton Stasheuski, Yuliya Syrykh.
Photo: spring96.0rg

Accusations have been brought against four A Country for Life volunteers detained as part of the so called cleaning-up operation on July 9 in Minsk, the foundation reports on Tuesday.

taken into custody for two months, they are now being held in pre-trial detention centre on Valadarski Street.

The arrestees have been charged with ‘financing the activities of extremist groups’ (Article 361-2 of the Criminal Code). The defendants are 37-year-old Maryna Dubrouskaya; 41-year-old Anton Stasheuski; 46-year-old Yuliya Syrykh; 44-year-old Tatsyana Astrouskaya. If found guilty under the article, each of them may face up to six years of imprisonment.

Their only ‘fault’ was providing assistance to the people detained amid and on the back of the protests in Belarus, in particular, packing food parcels and hygiene products.

Last week, the State Security Committee (KGB) reported the conduct of ‘an operation to clean up radicals’. The statement was voiced by Kanstantsin Bychak, the deputy head of the KGB investigation department, on the air of the state-run TV channel Belarus 1. It is unknown whether that was the operation announced by Alyaksandr Lukashenka on July 2 and whether it was connected with the attack on the free press and activists.

Updated
KGB reports ‘large-scale clean-up operation’. Results of Thursday’s attack on press and activists
2021.07.09 10:54

belsat.eu

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