First trial in ‘Tsikhanouski case’ starts in Belarus

Polit­i­cal pris­on­er Uladz­imir Nyaron­s­ki is accused of orga­niz­ing “ille­gal pub­lic events” all over Belarus; he is charged under Part 1 Arti­cle 342 (“Orga­ni­za­tion and prepa­ra­tion of actions, seri­ous­ly vio­lat­ing pub­lic order, or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in them”). In addi­tion, the author of YouTube chan­nel “Slut­sk for Life” is accused of pub­licly insult­ing the chair­man of Slut­sk Dis­trict Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee Andrei Yancheus­ki (Arti­cle 369 of the Crim­i­nal Code “Insult­ing a pub­lic offi­cer”). The case of Uladz­imir Nyaron­s­ki is heard by the head of Lahoisk dis­trict court Alyak­san­dr Rybak­ou.

Inves­ti­ga­tors believe that­U­ladz­imir Nyaron­s­ki is an activist of the “Coun­try for Life” and that he alleged­ly met with Syarhei Tsikhanous­ki on 2 Feb­ru­ary last year, with whom he dis­trib­uted the roles in the crime.

At the tri­al Uladz­imir Nyaron­s­ki said that while run­ning the youtube chan­nel he was threat­ened with impris­on­ment by KGB offi­cers. And he called his deten­tion in the cell a tor­ture.

“I spent 252 days in jail. I spent 60 days in soli­tary con­fine­ment. I show­ered 21 times dur­ing this time. I was moved 12 times, had 24 full search­es, spent 5 days in the open air. I went through 50 courts, 90 pris­on­ers. To live in the same house with thugs and remain human… In those 252 days I nev­er regret­ted going to prison. I apol­o­gize to Mr. Yancheus­ki, I was in fact wrong.

Prison is good for a man, but after six months a man gets used to prison and he con­sid­ers it his sec­ond home. After six months a per­son for­gets about free­dom at all. It is use­less to scare me with prison, I don’t want these tri­als to con­tin­ue. I’m not afraid of prison. I just want to ask my rel­a­tives for for­give­ness.

There is no heat­ing in my TDF. We shave our heads so we don’t get lice. In Akrestsi­na they kept me for three days in a spe­cial cell, where I was eat­en by bed­bugs. This is done with polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. We are already rolling into the abyss, this is wrong,” said Uladz­imir Nyaron­s­ki.

Uladz­imir Nyaron­s­ki was detained on May 6, 2020 near Min­sk. On May 8th , the Kas­trych­nit­s­ki Dis­trict Court of Mahil­iou sen­tenced Nyaron­s­ki under Arti­cle 23.34 of the Admin­is­tra­tive Code to 10 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest. He was not released after that. On 17 June it was report­ed that Uladz­imir Nyaaron­s­ki was placed in deten­tion cen­ter #1 in Val­adars­ki street of Min­sk as part of the crim­i­nal “Tsikhanous­ki case”.