A Minsk court has heard a criminal case against the head of the financial department of Leninski Borough Administration, Yury Syankou, spring96.org reports.
He was tried under Article 342 of the Criminal Code (“Actions that grossly violate public order”) – for his participation in the protests on August 16 and 23, 2020, and under Article 368 of the Criminal Code (“Insulting the President”) – for reposts in Telegram.
Syankou said that he went to the August 16 and 23 rallies out of curiosity because “I have never seen anything like this in my entire life.” At the trial, he also said that he has always been an emotional person and, because of the events of last August, “missed the opportunity to look one-sidedly.” He said that he was driving from work one day and saw men in uniform beating a man with truncheons. Yury took it hard, and that scene spurred him to go out to action.
On August 25, judge Tatsyana Shotsik pronounced the verdict that the prosecutor Yulia Dauhala demanded: three years in a general regime penal colony.
According to human rights defenders, in the last 12 months, Belarus has seen the most massive repressions in modern history. During that time, more than 4,690 criminal cases related to protests were initiated across the country. As of August 25, 645 people were recognized as political prisoners.
