Court Sentenced Bloggers “Who Started Protests In Belarus” To 3 Years In Jail

The state pros­e­cu­tor asked the court to sen­tence Kabanov and Petrukhin for three years in a gen­er­al regime colony. Petrukhin will also have to pay a fine of BYN 10,440 [~$3,990/€3,335], accord­ing to the ver­dict of the Brest court. The riot policeman’s claim against the defen­dants in the amount of BYN 1,500 [~$573/€479] was sat­is­fied in full. The fine of BYN 360 [~$137/€115] at the time of the sen­tenc­ing was already paid.

The inves­ti­ga­tion and the prosecutor’s office believe that mass protests through­out Belarus in 2020 sparked, among oth­er things, because of Petrukhin and Kabanov, who act­ed joint­ly with Sergei Tikhanovsky, Niko­lai Statke­vich, and Pavel Sevyarynets. The defense of the defen­dants called the accu­sa­tions spec­u­la­tion, the facts cit­ed by the state pros­e­cu­tor – tak­en out of con­text and insist­ed on end­ing the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion.

Accord­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion, Petrukhin and Kabanov filmed videos about the prob­lems of the Brest region and the protests of Brest res­i­dents against the con­struc­tion of a bat­tery plant and post­ed them on the Nar­o­d­ny Reporter YouTube chan­nel. In 2019, they met Sergei Tikhanovsky and met with him on August 14 in the vil­lage of Gorodishche, Pin­sk Dis­trict – this was con­firmed by the billing of mobile oper­a­tors.

Pros­e­cu­tor Amoso­va fur­ther said that “Kabanov met with Tikhanovsky more than once,” but cit­ed only one such case as an exam­ple – “in 2020 in Brest dur­ing a protest action accom­pa­nied by a direct stream of Tikhanovsky.” The accu­sa­tion states that Kabanov and Tikhanovsky then talked in mes­sen­gers –  they dis­cussed the Strana Dlya Zhizni [Coun­try for Life – Ed.] chan­nel, Tikhanovsky’s inten­tion to par­tic­i­pate in the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, and the Kabanovs’ assis­tance in hold­ing pick­ets to col­lect sig­na­tures for the nom­i­na­tion of pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates. This cor­re­spon­dence was retrieved from blog­gers’ phones.

As the “irrefutable and reli­able evi­dence” of the guilt of Petrukhin and Kabanov, the state pros­e­cu­tor cit­ed wire­tap­ping and cor­re­spon­dence of sev­er­al peo­ple. Sergei Tikhanovsky and Niko­lai Statke­vichs’ plans to meet in Min­sk and Brest, orga­ni­za­tion of pick­ets to col­lect sig­na­tures dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign. Com­ments by phone from Statke­vich to jour­nal­ists about his vision of the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign and plans for it.

“Reg­is­tra­tion of ini­tia­tive groups and hold­ing pick­ets were a cov­er-up for real actions relat­ed to the orga­ni­za­tion of large-scale long-term protest actions through­out the repub­lic, which should have begun simul­ta­ne­ous­ly with the start of the elec­tion cam­paign,” stressed Amoso­va.

Petrukhin and Kabanov, among oth­er things, “joint­ly car­ried out coor­di­nat­ed, pur­pose­ful activ­i­ties to cre­ate socio-polit­i­cal ten­sion in the coun­try on the eve of the 2020 elec­tions, to form a false idea among the cit­i­zens of the repub­lic about the ille­git­i­ma­cy of the actions of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the author­i­ties and admin­is­tra­tion, includ­ing the actions of the country’s top offi­cials, civ­il ser­vants, law enforce­ment offi­cers ”.

Recall that Brest blog­ger of the Nar­o­d­ny Reporter YouTube chan­nel Sergei Petrukhin was detained in a vil­lage near Pukhovichi on 16 June. The 49-year-old is accused of orga­niz­ing group actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order, of insult­ing a gov­ern­ment offi­cial in con­nec­tion with the per­for­mance of his offi­cial duties and of insult­ing a judge. Alexan­der Kabanov is accused of the same crimes. Kabanov dis­ap­peared on his way to a poly­clin­ic on 15 June. He was sen­tenced to 15 days of arrest and was final­ly found sev­er­al days lat­er in a deten­tion cen­tre in Min­sk.

The tri­al of the Brest blog­gers began on 11 Feb­ru­ary. Jour­nal­ists from non-state media were not allowed into a court­room. The judge removed Petrukhin and Kabanov from the court­room too. Accord­ing to the indict­ment, the defen­dants post­ed a pho­to of the police­man Vitaly Avtushenko with offen­sive com­ments on the YouTube chan­nel. The police­man is rec­og­nized as a vic­tim and is try­ing to recov­er 1,5000 for moral dam­age.

A pho­to of the secu­ri­ty offi­cial appeared on the inter­net after his par­tic­i­pa­tion in the arrest of blog­ger Sergei Tikhanovsky on 6 May. Avtushenko insists that the com­men­tary in the video demo­nizes him and insults his hon­our and dig­ni­ty. The police­man told the court that his neigh­bours stopped talk­ing to his par­ents after the pho­to emerged online.

“I began to wor­ry about my fam­i­ly and friends, because I am a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of law enforce­ment agen­cies and I am afraid that third par­ties can harm them,” Vitaly Autushenko said in court.

Anoth­er vic­tim in the process is judge of the Brest Region­al Court Andrei Leshchenko, who was report­ed­ly insult­ed by Sergei Petrukhin.