Belarusians stage rallies of solidarity with convicts in ‘Tsikhanouski case’ (photos)
On Tuesday evening, Belarusians living abroad organised a number of solidarity actions on the back of the authorities’ delivering guilty verdicts in the so-called Tsikhanouski case.
The 173-day trial of this case started on June 24; it was held behind closed doors. The defendants in the so called Tsikhanouski case were accused of ‘organising mass riots’ (Article 293-1 of the Criminal Code), ‘organisation of actions that grossly violated public order’ (Art. 342-1), ‘inciting social hatred’ (Art. 130-3), ‘disrupting the work of the Central Election Commission’ (Art. 191-2) in Belarus during the preparation and holding of the presidential elections. It should be highlighted that all of them had been arrested before the outbreak of the post-election protests in August 2020.
On December 14, judge Mikalai Dolya imposed the following prison terms:
- Syarhei Tsikhanouski got 18 years in a medium security penal colony (he was found guilty under Art. 342-1, 293-1, 130-3, 191-2);
- Artsyom Sakau and Dzmitry Papou – 16 years in a medium security penal colony each (found guilty under Art. 342-1, 293-1, 130-3, 191-2);
- Uladzimir Tsyhanovich and Ihar Losik – 15 years in a medium security penal colony each (found guilty under Art.293-1, 130-3);.
- Mikalai Statkevich – 14 years in a high security penal colony (found guilty under Art. 293-1).
Białystok, Poland
Vilnius, Lithuania
Warsaw, Poland
Bydgoszcz, Poland
Belgium
Batumi, Georgia
Stockholm, Sweden
In Belarus, the solidarity rallies were held ‘in the partisan style’, because their participants might face persecution and imprisonment:
