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Wife comments on new jail sentence for young opposition activist Vinahradaw

 

A district judge in Minsk on Tuesday sentenced prominent young opposition activist Pavel Vinahradaw to seven days in jail, finding him guilty of disorderly conduct for allegedly shouting obscenities.

The trial of the 23-year-old leader of the "Tell the Truth!" movement's youth wing called Zmena was to take place in the Maskowski District Court on March 5, but Judge Yawhen Khatkevich announced that the case would be sent back to the police for “additional work” and ordered the accused released.

On March 2, Mr. Vinahradaw completed a 10-day jail sentence that he had been given over a protest in front of the Minsk City Executive Committee, which saw soft toys playing the role of demonstrators. Nine toys bearing miniature signs calling for press freedom and the release of political prisoners were displayed on a flower urn.

As Mr. Vinahradaw told BelaPAN, with about an hour remaining before the expiration of his 10-day jail term, he was ordered out of his cell in the detention center on Akrestsina Street and met his “old friends” from the Maskowski district police department who got him into a car and drove him to a police station where he was told that he had shouted obscenities near a nearby store. He had a new charge sheet drawn up against him and was returned to the detention center.

Mr. Vinahradaw argued during his trial that he had been unable to be near the store on March 2 because he had not in fact been freed, but an officer of the detention center claimed that he had actually been released earlier than he should have been.

Judge Khatkevich ignored the testimony of the three witnesses for the defendant who said that they had been waiting for him outside the detention center but never seen him go out.
“Initially, I had the impression that the judge really wanted to look into the case,” Mr. Vinahradaw’s wife, Svyatlana, commented to BelaPAN. “He asked a lot of questions, called an officer from the detention center and heard the witnesses nominated by Pavel. But the outcome was as it was: my husband was given a seven-day jail term.”

“I know the judge is on the European Union’s entry ban list,” Svyatlana said. “Maybe, he pretended to be impartial in order to ease his lot.”

In May 2011, Mr. Vinahradaw was sentenced to four years in prison in connection with a post-election protest staged in the Belarusian capital city on December 19, 2010. He was among 11 post-election protesters pardoned by Alyaksandr Lukashenka on September 14, 2011.

In May 2008, Mr. Vinahradaw was sentenced to a two-year "restricted freedom" term over a January 2008 demonstration against the government's crackdown on small business owners. He was amnestied a year later.