Kavalenka’s trial denied to be held in Belarusian

A former political prisoner Siarhei Kavalenka’s court proceedings continued today in Vitsebsk.

The trial is being held in the court of the city’s Piershamajski district and is led by a judge Valantsina Kismeroshkina, Radio Svaboda reports.

The court room is being guarded by uniformed policemen. More than 200 policemen in uniform and mufti were in the court room before the beginning of the trial. Other people were let into the room only after they started threatening with a complaint to the court’s chairman. Kavalenka demanded for the proceedings to be held in the Belarusian language. The judge denied the motion, having said that he would have an interpreter.

The former political prisoner was detained in the evening on 25 March. Siarhei Kavalenka was accused of crossing the street not at a pedestrian crossing.

A Vitsebsk opposition activist Aliaksandr Halavan, whom the former political prisoner managed to give a call, told about the detention.

We would remind that Siarhei Kavalenka was pardoned in September 2012 and released from Mahilou’s penal colony. He was behind bars since December 2011. In February last year Kavalenka was sentenced to 2 years and 1 month of imprisonment in a general regime colony for hanging out a white-red-white flag on Vitsebsk main Christmass tree two years before.

Photo: svaboda.org