Leanid Kulakou, a member of the European Belarus civil campaign, has been found guilty of participating in an unsanctioned rally.
Judge Valery Esman has imposed a fine of 1,147.5 Belarusian rubles on the activist (appr. $550).
On April 7, the Minsk police drew a protocol upon Kulakou for his showing up at the public prayer near the Holy Spirit Cathedral in Minsk and holding a white-red-white flag.
“They wrote in the protocol that I was rallying in an ‘unauthorized’ place, but in court a riot policeman has said that I was not doing anything wrong, I was standing and praying. So, aren’t believers allowed to pray near churches? Perhaps, they should have summoned priests and asked where one may pray and where not. I am going to appeal against the verdict,” Kulakou told belsat.eu.
As reported earlier, opposition politician Mikalai Statkevich had to spend 15 days in jail for calling upon people to come to the Holy Spirit Cathedral on the Freedom Square on April 7 to hold a prayer service in memory of the innocent victims in Kurapaty, a Stalin-era mass executions site near Minsk. However, he failed to show up at the event as the police preventively detained him.
Statkevich organized this initiative because of what happened in Kurapaty recently, where on April 4 the authorities demolished more than 70 crosses and detained activists.
