Minsk: Chemistry student faces criminal charge for ‘setting up extremist formation’
Another student has been arrested as part of a criminal case which is officially linked to ‘extremism’, human rights centre Viasna reports.
At about 7.40 am on March 24, Artsyom Bayarski, a 20-year-old student of Chemistry Department of the Belarusian State University (BSU), was taken away from dormitory Nr 2 on Kastrychnitskaya Street in Minsk. The details of the young man’s detention were discussed in student chats on social media platforms; e.g. eyewitnesses say his roommates were handcuffed and laid down on the floor.
Then Artsyom was tried in the House of Justice and sentenced to 25 days in jail.
Artsyom Bayarski had previously been arrested for 15 days for participating in ‘an unauthorised mass event, which might have been the reason for his being preventively detained on the eve of Belarusians’ unofficial Freedom Day.
The student was to have been released on April 18, but today it has become known that Artsyom is a suspect in the criminal case opened under Part 1 of Art. 361 of the Criminal Code (‘establishing an extremist formation’). Now he is being held in the pre-trial detention centre.
