Trial Of Belsat Journalists Who Reported Live From Changes Square Under Way

Kate­ri­na Andree­va and Darya Chultso­va have been behind bars for two months, they have been charged with orga­niz­ing and prepar­ing actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order. Human rights activists rec­og­nized both Andree­va and Chultso­va as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

The cour­t­house is crowd­ed: col­leagues from var­i­ous media, rel­a­tives, friends and diplo­mates came to sup­port them. Jour­nal­ists of Belaru­sian and Russ­ian pro-gov­ern­ment media, as well as Onlin­er, Nasha Niva, Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da and Nar­o­d­naya Volya were allowed into the hall. Dozens of peo­ple were left behind the doors of the hall, in the cor­ri­dor.

The pros­e­cu­tor read out for more than ten min­utes what Kate­ri­na Andree­va and Daria Chultso­va are accused of.

Accord­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion, on 15 Novem­ber “out of mer­ce­nary motives, being at the address Smor­gov­sky tract, 1”, by pri­or con­spir­a­cy with each oth­er and oth­er uniden­ti­fied per­sons, they had intend­ed to orga­nize actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order and involve obvi­ous dis­obe­di­ence to the legit­i­mate require­ments of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the author­i­ty or entail dis­rup­tion of the work of trans­port. The crime was com­mit­ted with the help of mobile phones, video cam­eras, a tri­pod and Press vests.

The pros­e­cu­tion states that “by air­ing infor­ma­tion, they gath­ered active par­tic­i­pants who gross­ly vio­lat­ed pub­lic order”, “in order to arrange mass gath­er­ing able to resist the actions of law enforce­ment offi­cers.” The inves­ti­ga­tion states that Kate­ri­na Andree­va “gave a pos­i­tive assess­ment” to the ongo­ing events, thus call­ing for unau­tho­rized events and there­by “orga­nized actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order.” They caused dis­rup­tions in the work of pub­lic trans­port. “Min­sk­trans” esti­mat­ed the dam­age at more than BYN 11,500 [~$4,430/3,700]

Dur­ing the tri­al, Daria and Kate­ri­na were still try­ing to keep their spir­its. Both plead­ed not guilty. Chultsova’s lawyer filed a peti­tion to change the mea­sure of restraint for both defen­dants, cit­ing their lack of con­vic­tions and the COVID-19 epi­dem­ic, which makes it unsafe to be in the pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­tre. Judge Natalia Buguk did not grant the request.