Rubtsou appears at trial without t-shirt but with slogan “Lukashenka, go away”

Activist from Homel Yury Rubtsou, who has been on hunger strike for the 50th day, stands trial today in Pruzhany.

The political prisoner is held in a glass box, Radio Svaboda reports. Yury Rubtsou took off his t-shirt to show the tattoo reading “Lukashenka, go away” he got during his term in an open-type correctional facility. The judge ordered the activist to dress up, but he refused.

Judge Mikalai Repikha will hear the criminal case under article 415 of the Criminal Case (evasion of serving a term of punishment). The political prisoner may face up to three years in prison.

Yury Rubtosu is on hunger strike in the temporary detention facility in Baraavichy.

The criminal case was initiated for violating conditions of serving a term under part 3 of article 47 of the Penal Code of the Republic of Belarus and violating the inner rules of an open-type correctional facility that oblige an inmate to work in accordance with the job offer issued by the administration. Rubtsou declined four job offers, which was interpreted as evasion of serving a term of punishment.

Yury Rubtsou refused to work due to low wages and demanded to give him a job with the country's average wage of $600. The political prisoner thinsk the new criminal case against him is illegals, as well as the previous case for insulting a judge.

On October 6, 2014, Yury Rubtsou was sentenced by Minsk's Tsentralny district court to 1.6 years in open-type correctional facility No.7. He was sent to the village of Kuplin in the Pruzhany district on December 22.