Activist Mikalai Peshko will be tried for holding an unauthorized mass event in Homiel (Article 23.34 of the Administrative Code).
On August 18, the local police drew a protocol upon him.
“On August 9, from 14.00 to 15.00, M. Peshko was picketing for abolishing the death penalty in Belarus in front of Homiel department store in Savetskaya street,” the protocol reads.
“As required by law on mass events, I asked permission to hold the picket 15 days prior to the date, but the authorities refused to authorize it,” the activist says.
In spite of the ban, Peshko and other activists handed out issue-related leaflets and books (Who Needs The Death Penalty). By picketing, they wanted to draw attention to the Amnesty International campaign against executing Belarusian citizen Alyaksei Mikhalenya.
Belarus remains the only country in Europe and the CIS, where the death penalty is maintained and applied, in accordance with the Constitution, as an exceptional measure of punishment for especially grave crimes.
In 2016, four death sentences were carried out in Belarus.
The latest death sentence was passed to Alyaksei Mikhalenya in Homiel, who had killed two people in a fight on 17 March. In June, the EU called for a moratorium on the death penalty, now it is the Amnesty International which is seeking the abolition of the death penalty after an appeal to president Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
belsat.eu
