The ‘Regnum’ Authors Found Guilty by Court but Released in the Court Room
Yury Paulavets, Dzmitry Alimkin, and Siarhei Shyptenka have been found guilty of collective incitement of hatred on the ground of national identity (article 130 of Belarus Criminal Court).
All of them were released from custody in the court room, due to the changed measure of restraint. Paulavets, Alimkin, and Shyptenka were punished by 5 years’ imprisonment, suspended for three years. All of them will be released under recognizance not to leave the place of their residence before the sentence comes into force.
As soon as the sentence was announced, Siarhei Shyptenka stated that he would appeal against the court verdict and continue to contribute publications to the Russian Web-sites.
Shyptenka added that all that [i.e., litigation – editor’s note] was an unadequate reaction to the expressed by him words and views.
‘I hope that fundamental rights and liberties, which have been given us at great cost will not be lost,’ noted Shyptenka.
The Public Prosecutor Aliaksandr Karol wanted to sentence the convicted ‘Regnum’ correspondents to 5 years of imprisonment, suspended for three years.
The whole group of convicted ‘Regnum’ authors has already spent more than a year behind bars. Another person involved in the case, the ‘Regnum’ Chief Editor Yury Baranchyk was detained on request of Belarusian authorities in Moscow in March 2017. However, he was released some time later. It should be mentioned that a criminal case has been filed against Mr. Baranchyk in Belarus.
‘The applied mechanisms and methods are worrying from the point of view of freedom of expression, since such tools can eventually be used in relation to any person, who criticizes the authorities or, e.g., reveals the Russian imperialistic policies,’ noted a media expert Aliaksandr Klaskouski, commenting upon the case.