in Minsk on January 5, a lawsuit began on the Nobel Prize laureate, chairman of the Vyesna human rights center Aleshatsky, his deputy Valentin Stefanovich, the coordinator of the campaign for free elections, Vladimir Labkovich, is also judged by Dmitry Solovyev, who left Belarus, who left Belarus. .
They are accused of articles on the smuggling of funds and financing group actions that grossly violating public order. They face from 7 to 12 years in prison, reports the present.
Belyatsky, Stefanovich and Labkovich have been in custody since July 14 last year. Human rights activists sitting in a metal cage communicate with a judge in Belarusian and make petitions that the whole process passes in Belarusian and handcuffs are removed from them.
Judge Marina Reserves refused to satisfy the first petition, substantiating her decision by the fact that there are two state languages in Belarus. At the same time, she allowed all three to continue to speak in court in Belarusian. The judge did not consider the second request to remove handcuffs from the accused. Belyutsky filed another request for providing him with a translator from Russian to Belorussian. He said that he did not speak Russian. The judge refused to satisfy the request of the human rights activist, explaining this by the fact that while familiarizing himself with the materials of the criminal case in Russian, he had no problems with understanding.
According to the version of the prosecution, human rights activists from April 4, 2016 to July 14, 2021 cashed out money that came from “various structures and funds” to bank accounts of the Vasna human rights center. After that, according to the accusation, they “illegally” transported the cashed money to Lithuania across the customs border of the Eurasian Economic Union – at least 201 thousand euros and 54 thousand dollars were “taken out without declaration”.