On August 30, Leninski district court of Brest passed a verdict on the eighth group of people in the so-called round dance case, a Belsat correspondent reports.
Judge Dzmitry Kurouski took heed of the demands by public prosecutors Alyaksandr Batsyushka and Mikhail Yushchuk and imposed the following sentences on the defendants:
- Kanstantsin Svidunovich, Syarhei Kananovich, Alyaksandr Zhuk, Hleb Nikanovich, Ihar Syamykin get 1.5 years of restriction of liberty;
- Katsyaryna Brovach and Yury Satsyuk – 1.5 years of restriction of liberty without being sent to a correctional facility;
- Artsyom Laski and Danila Dzyatkouski – 2 years of restriction of liberty;
- Viktar Astroshka – 2 years of restriction of liberty without being sent to a correctional facility;
- Ilya Yahorau and Ihar Vinakurau – 2.5 years of restriction of liberty
The court case concerns September 13, when another protest action was held in Brest. Several hundred people formed a round dance. There was music and a festival, like a carnival, as witnesses recall those events. Police brought a water cannon to disperse the round dance. It was used for the first time during the protests in Belarus. Since then, Brest residents have been calling this intersection ‘a water cannon’s’ and describe the case as ‘round dance’.
As reported earlier, over a hundred protesters have been charged as part of the high-profile case. Most of them are accused under Article 342 of the Criminal Code (‘active participation in group actions that grossly violate public order, resulting in the disruption of transport and businesses’; ‘organisation and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order’).
