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  • TUT.BY Journalist Lyubov Kasperovich arrested for 15 days

    TUT.BY journalist Lyubov Kasperovich is being examined in the Moskovsky District Court. She is accused of participating in an unsanctioned mass event.

    Judge Sergei Katser found the journalist guilty and sentenced her to 15 days of arrest.

    The case is being con­sid­ered by judge Sergei Katser. Lubov is ques­tioned remote­ly via video link. Katser reads out that Lyubov is accused of par­tic­i­pat­ing in an unau­tho­rized mass event – Part 1 of Art. 24.23 Admin­is­tra­tive Code. The jour­nal­ist imme­di­ate­ly notes that anoth­er tri­al is tak­ing place next to her – ex-chair­man of the Unit­ed Civ­il Par­ty Ana­toly Lebed­ko is being tried, so she can bare­ly hear what the judge is say­ing.

    The judge repeats his ques­tions, reads out her rights. Kasper­ovich makes her first peti­tion: 72 hours after her arrest ends 10 min­utes lat­er, and she still does not know the rea­son for her deten­tion and why she is in a tem­po­rary deten­tion facil­i­ty on Okrestin Street in Min­sk. She asks to famil­iar­ize her­self with the report of deten­tion and charges.

    “This is the first time I hear from you what I am accused of,” the jour­nal­ist said to the judge.

    “The report con­tains a note that you refused to receive a copy of the report, that your rights and oblig­a­tions were explained to you, and you refused to sign the report,” said the judge.

    “It’s a lie. When they searched my belong­ings, fire hours after the arrest, I made a note in the report that they did not explain to me why I was arrest­ed,” said Kasper­ovich.

    Judge Katser reject­ed the journalist’s peti­tion, she would not be able to get famil­iar­ized with the report. Kasper­ovich makes anoth­er peti­tion – to talk to lawyer Andrei Mochalov. The defence attor­ney also files a motion – to talk to his client, the court grants it but gives only 7 min­utes. All present is asked to leave the court­room, except for the lawyer and the judge’s sec­re­tary.

    After talk­ing with the jour­nal­ist, lawyer Mochalov asks the judge to give him time to get famil­iar­ize him­self with the case. The judge grants the peti­tion, the court breaks until 11.40 am. Recall that on Mon­day, 17 May, the journalist’s deten­tion expires at about 11.15, that is, Lyubov must either be released or con­vict­ed before that time.

    After reject­ing at least three lawyer’s peti­tions, the judge reads out the report: on 14 May from 10.10 am to no lat­er than 10.40 Lyubov Kasper­ovich was pick­et­ing. She was at the main entrance to the House of Jus­tice on Semashko, 33, where, as part of a group of cit­i­zens who gath­ered to express their polit­i­cal views and atti­tude to the tri­al, tak­ing place in the House of Jus­tice, she took part in an unau­tho­rized mass event.

    I absolute­ly do not plead guilty,” said Lyubov Kasper­ovich.

    Lyubov Kasper­ovich was detained while per­form­ing her pro­fes­sion­al duties on 14 May at the House of Jus­tice in Min­sk, where the tri­al in the “stu­dents case” was being held. At least 100 peo­ple gath­ered near the cour­t­house, wish­ing to sup­port the stu­dents: their rel­a­tives, friends, and car­ing Belaru­sians. Almost no one was allowed into the court­room, and the police asked the peo­ple who were near the build­ing to dis­perse, and lat­er the arrests began. Among the detainees was Lyubov Kasper­ovich, who was tak­en to the police depart­ment of the Moskovsky dis­trict.

    Before the arrest, Lyubov inter­viewed friends of one of the accused – she ful­filled her pro­fes­sion­al duties, prepar­ing a report.

    “We were talk­ing, when sud­den­ly some­one shout­ed: ‘OMON!’ We saw peo­ple in black run­ning towards us and we start­ed to run away from them. The TUT.BY jour­nal­ist stum­bled and fell, the riot police rushed at her,” eye­wit­ness­es of the events told TUT.BY.

    Late in the evening, some of the detained stu­dents were released from the police depart­ment with reports. Their tri­al will take place on Wednes­day, 19 May. Lyubov was tak­en to a deten­tion cen­tre on Okrestin Street. Our col­league spent the week­end there, a lawyer was not allowed to vis­it her. Kasperovich’s case was pre­sum­ably to be con­sid­ered on Sat­ur­day, 15 May. But for the whole day, the mate­ri­als of the case were not trans­ferred to the court from the police depart­ment. Our col­league spent the whole week­end at Okrestin Street.

    Cur­rent­ly, 16 media rep­re­sen­ta­tives are behind bars. Today in Mogilev, the court sen­tenced Alexan­der Burakov and Vladimir Lapt­se­vich to 20 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrests, who were detained three days ago at the cour­t­house, where even the rel­a­tives of the defen­dants were not allowed to the tri­al of Pavel Sev­er­inets and activists of the “Euro­pean Belarus”. Ear­li­er pho­tog­ra­ph­er Tatiana Kapitono­va was sen­tenced to 10 days in jail for tak­ing pho­tos of the women’s ral­ly.

    Three jour­nal­ists are serv­ing a crim­i­nal sen­tence: Kate­ri­na Andree­va and Darya Chultso­va from Bel­sat were sen­tenced to two years in prison for a live stream from action in mem­o­ry of Roman Bon­darenkoKate­ri­na Bori­se­vich, sen­tenced to six months in prison for an arti­cle that Roman Bon­darenko was sober, is to be released next week. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Press Club, jour­nal­ists Kse­nia Lut­ski­na and Andrey Pochobut, media man­ag­er Andrei Alexan­drov are await­ing tri­al in the pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­tre.

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