Belarusian human rights defenders consider Young Front activist political prisoner
On Thursday, human rights watchdogs have recognised Pilip Shaurou as a prisoner of conscience, human right centre Viasna reports. They are calling on the Belarusian authorities to clear the man of all the charges and release him from prison.
On January 19, Shaurou, an activist of the youth opposition organisation Young Front, was arrested after he turned himself in to the police to confess to painting the hands of the monument to Russian poet Alexander Pushkin in Minsk.
On March 18, criminal proceeding were initiated against him. According to invesigators, he also spray-painted a white-red-white flag on a granite memorial to Interior Ministry officers killed on duty and the number ‘1937’ on the fence of a water-supply facility near Minsk.
Pilip Shaurou is being held in detention centre #1 in Minsk. He may face up to six years in prison.
“As a result of a legal analysis of the charges and the circumstances of the case, we came to the conclusion that Shaurou’s actions did not constitute an offense under Part 1 and Part 2 of Art. 339 of the Criminal Code (‘hooliganism’). The graffiti he spray-painted did not destroy or damage the objects, nor did they lose their consumer qualities. Their restoration required some material costs, which could be further imposed on the perpetrator under the civil law procedures,” the Belarusian human rights activists say in a statement.
In their opinion, the contents of the images and inscriptions in the context of the social and political events and public debates that took place (a series of public protests against the so-called ‘advanced integration’ of Russia and Belarus) at the end of 2019 indicate that Shaurou’s motives were expressing his opinion on these issues of public importance.
“We believe that these forms of expression are covered by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and have nothing to do with the motives set out in the Investigation Committee’s procedural document,” the statement reads.
The human rights defender call the fact of pre-trial detention ‘groundless and excessive’ and regard it as a means of exerting pressure on the accused as an act of revenge for his exercise of universally recognized civil rights and in connection with Shaurou’s affiliation with Young Front.
The appeal was signed by HRC Viasna, Belarusian Helsinki Committee, Legal Initiative, Belarusian PEN Centre, Human Constanta, Office for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Legal Transformation Centre ‘Lawtrend’, Belarusian Association of Journalists, Identity and Law, Barys Zvozskau Belarusian Human Rights House, Assembly of NGOs.
belsat.eu, following spring96.org
