On Tuesday evening, the Minsk police detained Pavel Sevyarynets, a former political prisoner and co-chairman of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party.
“Pavel was about to take part in the rally of support of political prisoners. Leaving the house, he was talking to me on the phone. He managed to say that plainclothes were detaining him,” his wife Volha Sevyarynets told Belsat TV.
Three days ago, Pavel Sevyarynets announced a campaign for Svyataslau Baranovich.
“It is no joke. The man is completely isolated, it is not ruled out that he will not see at least one year and seven months – until the end of his term. Svyataslau got three years of imprisonment for his protecting us. Will we all be able to support him?” Sevyarynets wrote.
The rally started at 18 pm in Kastrychnitskaya Square in Minsk on February, 26.
In March 2017, Svyataslau Baranovich, a resident of Minsk, defended the representatives of the anarchist movement from the plainclothes people who attacked the young men in the trolleybus at the Bangalore Square after the ‘non-parasites’ rally. According to Baranovich, he several times struck the unknown people dressed in black. Although the incident took place in March, Baranovich was detained only in October. Initially, he was prosecuted for hooliganism, but later his case was re-qualified for another article – “violence against an employee of internal affairs agency.”
The prosecution said that Baranovich had knocked down a riot policeman, Artsyom Paulau with several blows. Notably, Paulau was also dressed in black civvies and had no insignia. Although the defendant pleaded guilty and the affected party had no complaints against Baranovich, the judge convicted him of the crime and sentenced him to three years of imprisonment in minimum- security penal colony. However, according to his family, Baranovich has repeatedly been put into an isolation cell.
Belarusian human rights defenders’ opinions on the case vary. the Human Rights Centre Viasna and the Belarusian Helsinki Committee have already said they will not recognise Baranovich as a political prisoner as the offense committed was of violent nature. However, the participants of the forum Freedom To Political Prisoners said they would definitely consider him as a prisoner of conscience.
Belsat.eu
