Queues to Hrodna prisons

Hrodna prisons do not already have enough room for persons convicted for “silent protests.”

“Belsat” TV channel has been informed about that by one of the arrested on July 6, Alyaksei L. “I was detained when I started to defend a girl. A man in mufti was pulling her by the hair. My arms were wrung, and I was dragged into a bus,” the guy said. “The trial was held on Thursday. None of my arguments were taken into account by the judge. Policemen, whom I saw for the first time, witnessed that I had been using obscene language. I was sentenced to 7 days’ imprisonment for that.” However, as it turned out, there are so many arrested that they do not have enough place in the remand prison. “I was told I must wait for Wednesday when part of the detainees would serve their term. And then I was to serve my term,” the man said.

The latest protest rally in Hrodna gathered about a thousand of protesters. According to Vyasna human rights centre, policemen detained more than 100 participants. “Brutal physical force was used against people, dozens of people were injured and had to seek medical assistance. Even late at night reports were drawn up in police departments, according to which participants of the protest were convicted for participation in an unsanctioned event, for petty hooliganism,” the press-release of the organization notes.

There was a well-known Hrodna State Medical University professor Alyaksandr Astrouski among the arrested. He describes the situation with arrests in the following way: “It is awful, passers-by are snatched by people in mufti, they do not present themselves, they did not voice any charges, they threw people into buses by force. It is clear that someone on the top has fear for his dishonourable, criminal power. And they want this fear to be passed to all citizens of the country, to the whole society to paralyze it.”

Not a single not-guilty verdict was passed in the country after the latest protest rally. Most of the participants were sentenced to 5-10 days of imprisonment or to fines starting from 17 basic units (from Br 600,000) and more.