Vitebsk journalists to appeal against fines for photo shoot

Journalists and activists from Vitebsk continue to appeal against fines for a photo shoot.

It is said by Viasna human rights centre.

The court of Vitebsk's Chyhunachny district court said a photo shoot with graffiti was an unsanctioned picket and fined six persons. Attempts to appeal against the court decision to the regional court failed. The activists filed an appeal to the chairman of the regional court.

According to human rights defender Pavel Levinau, participants of the photo shoot decided to go to the end and appeal to the UN Human Rights Committee if necessary. “We tried to appeal against the decision of the court of first instance, but we failed. We then tried to appeal to the chairman of the regional court, asking to postpone the execution of the court decision until he studies our cases. But we got a refusal again. We decided to ask the district court to allow the activists and journalists to pay fines by installments, because they cannot pay a fine of more than 3 million rubles at once. But we received a refusal again,” he says.

Levinau took part in the photo shoot in Vitebsk in early November 2014. The activists took photos against the wall with graffiti depicting origami birds breaking free from cages. People were photographed holding paper-made cages and birds in their hands. The pictures were published on the Internet on November 5 during the international campaign Stand Up for Journalism. The human rights activists and journalists were charged with holding an illegal picket and fined.

Human rights defenders say nobody hindered them during the photo shoot, but two weeks after the photos appeared on the Internet, the head of the order and crime prevention department of the Chyhunachny district police department called them. He heard their explanations and brought charges against them. The police officer was the only witness at the trial.

“He said he received the order to deal with the people in the photos from his chiefs in the regional police department. He thinks that the participants of the photo shoot demonstrated their public and political interests,” human rights defenders say.