‘Belarusophobes’ case’: Verdict to be passed soon

On Jan­u­ary 22, state pros­e­cu­tor Alyak­san­dr Karol said that the guilt of the accused Dzmit­ry Alimkin, Yury Paulavets and Syarhei Shypt­sen­ka was ful­ly estab­lished. Accord­ing to him, they admit­ted that they had writ­ten arti­cles that could incite nation­al hatred.

Alyak­san­dr Karol demands the trio be sen­tenced to 5 years of impris­on­ment with a three-year retri­ieve (Art. 130–3 of the Belaru­sian Crim­i­nal Code).

Belaru­sians Yury Paulavets (pen­names Mikalay Radau and Pavel Yuryntsau),Dzmit­ry Alimkin (pen­name Alla Bron) and Syarhei Shypt­sen­ka were detained in Decem­ber, 2016. The Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee ini­ti­at­ed crim­i­nal cas­es under arti­cle 130 (incit­ing hatred) against them. Paulavets crit­i­cized the Belaru­sian author­i­ties for their con­tri­bu­tion to the ‘nation­al­ism’ while Alimkin called Belarus a ‘mad pseu­dostate’. As for Shypt­sen­ka, the ideas of the ‘arti­fi­cial’ nature of Belaru­sian state­hood and the need for ‘reuni­fi­ca­tion’ with Rus­sia run through his pub­li­ca­tions like a gold­en thread. The texts con­cerned were pub­lished on Russ­ian web­sites Reg­num, Lenta.ru, EADai­ly.

There is anoth­er defen­dant in the case – Yury Baranchyk, a for­mer res­i­dent of Min­sk, who was a men­tor of the three men men­tioned above. He used to Work in the Belarus pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tion. Since 2007 — the head of the “Empire” infor­ma­tion ana­lyt­i­cal por­tal. A few years ago, he left for Rus­sia. He reg­u­lar­ly writes arti­cles for regnum.ru and slams Min­sk for ‘forced Belaru­siza­tion’.

In March, Yury Baranchyk was detained in Moscow at the request of Belaru­sian inves­ti­ga­tors, but then released on bail. A court in Moscow did not issue a war­rant for his arrest say­ing that the accu­sa­tions were ground­less.