Blogger Petrukhin accused three articles Criminal Code

• Part 1 of Art. 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus — orga­ni­za­tion or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in group actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order. It is pun­ished with a fine, or arrest, or restric­tion of lib­er­ty for a term of up to 3 years, or impris­on­ment for the same term.

• Arti­cle 369 of the Crim­i­nal Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus — a pub­lic insult to a gov­ern­ment offi­cial in con­nec­tion with the per­for­mance of his duties. It is pun­ished with com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice, or a fine, or cor­rec­tion­al labor for up to 2 years, or arrest, or restric­tion of lib­er­ty for up to 3 years.

  Arti­cle 391 of the Crim­i­nal Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus — insult­ing a judge or lay judge in con­nec­tion with the admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice. It is pun­ished by a fine or cor­rec­tion­al labor for a term of up to 2 years, or by arrest, or restric­tion of lib­er­ty for a term of up to 3 years.

Accord­ing to pre­lim­i­nary infor­ma­tion, arti­cles on “insult­ing a judge” and “insult­ing a gov­ern­ment offi­cial” relate to episodes two years ago.

Sergei Petrukhin was detained on June 16 and pun­ished to a 15-day arrest. Lat­er it turned out that he became the defen­dant in a crim­i­nal case under Art. 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code of the Repub­lic of Belarus, which was insti­tut­ed after the inci­dent in Grod­no on May 29. On June 25, Petrukhin was tak­en to the Min­sk pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter, and from there he was trans­ferred to pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter No. 1 on the street. Val­adarsk­a­ga, where he is now.

The human rights com­mu­ni­ty of Belarus rec­og­nized Sergey Petrukhin, as well as oth­er detained blog­gers as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

Sergey Petrukhin was already con­vict­ed in a crim­i­nal case in April 2019. He was found guilty under Part 2 of Art. 188 (“Slan­der”) and part 2 of arti­cle 189 (“Insult”) and was pun­ished with a large fine. Human rights activists found the case polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed.