Brest Activist: At Trials, Policemen Speak Quietly, Almost In Whisper

The authorities are trying to prevent anyone from hearing anything during the trials over the opponents of the battery factory.

Tatsiaana Fesikava was fined 245 rubles: the day before, the woman was putting stickers “Say No To The Plant” on clothes of the people, who gathered at Lenin Square to protest against the iPower plant, Belsat reports.

Other opponents of harmful production were tried as well – Andrei Astapchuk, who had been kept in the temporary detention center and was punished with the same fine, as well as Yuliya Zubik. The woman says:

“The court did not issue a decision in my case, because I had filed a complaint against local policeman Rabushka. He used intimidation to make me testify, threatened to leave me in the temporary detention center until the next day, until the trial.”

On the eve, the police brutally detained the protesters against the battery factory construction. At least five people got into the Leninski district police department, administrative protocols were drawn up against some of them. Human rights activist Raman Kisliak testifies:

“The trial is held in such a way that the citizens, who have come to listen to the court hearing, are not able to do this, because the witnesses – the police officers – speak very quietly, almost in a whisper. And if citizens, including me, ask to speak louder, the judge simply removes them from the courtroom.”