Judge lifts all restrictions on Poczobut's freedom
The judge granted complete freedom to Mr. Poczobut in connection with
the expiration of his suspended three-year prison sentence. He could
have been sent to a correctional institution or had the suspension of
his prison term prolonged.
As Mr. Poczobut told BelaPAN,
he does not view the ruling as evidence that Belarusian courts were
fair. "If our legal system is fair, I should have been exonerated
because I haven't committed any crime," he said. "The authorities simply
didn't see any need to put me behind bars."
Mr. Poczobut said
that he had not changed anything in his work because of the threat of
imprisonment. "When I write, my top priority is to describe the
Belarusian reality as accurately as possible and not to please the KGB
or Lukashenka," he said.
In July 2013, district judges in Minsk
lifted all restrictions on the freedom of former presidential candidate
Uladzimir Nyaklyayew and journalist Iryna Khalip in connection with the
expiration of suspended two-year prison sentences imposed on them over
the December 19, 2010 post-election street protest.
In 2011, Mr. Poczobut, a Hrodna-based correspondent of the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza
and an ethnic Pole, spent three months in jail and was eventually
sentenced to a suspended three-year prison term with two years'
probation on July 5 for allegedly insulting and defaming Mr. Lukashenka
in his articles. On September 20, the Hrodna Regional Court upheld the
sentence.
As Mr. Poczobut told reporters, defamation was largely found in the fact that he had called Mr. Lukashenka a dictator.
