A criminal case has been initiated against Syarhei Sparysh, spokesman for the party Narodnaya Hramada and an associate of imprisoned politician Mikalai Statkevich.
Now Sparysh is being held in the temporary detention facility.
The charges were brought under Art. 342-1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (‘Organising or actively participatihg in actions that grossly violate public order’). According to human rights defenders, the case might be linked to the incident that took place at May[s pre-election picket in the city of Hrodna.
According to the official version, a group of people by prior conspiracy with Tsikhanouski, Aranovich, Sakau, Furmanau, Novikau and others, distributed the roles and coordinated actions, under the formal pretext of collecting signatures for presidential wannabe Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, organised an illegal rally in Hrodna on May, 29. On that day, the police arrested popular blogger Syarhei Tsikhanouski, head of his wife’s nomination group, and at least 15 persons during a peaceful picket in Hrodna. It should be noted that one of the women (Alena K.) who showed up at the picket attempted to stir up a conflict with Tsikhanouski, which resulted in pushing and jostling. According to the official version, one policeman fell down and had to be taken to hospital. On May 30, the Interior Ministry initiated criminal investigation into an alleged act of violence against two police officers.
Civil activist Syarhei Sparysh was detained by plainclothes policemen in his flat in Minsk on June, 25. Witnesses claim that he was being dragged along the stairs; the ununiformed officers did not allow him to get dressed. His parents got hurt as well, Sparysh’s friends said.
As reported earlier, politician Mikalai Statkevich, bloggers Uladzimir Nyaronski, Syarhei Pyatrukhin, Alyaksandr Kabanau, Uladzimir Tsyhanovich, Dzmitry Kazlou and Ihar Losik have also become defendants in the so-called Tsikhanouski case.
