Student gets six years in jail for creating a button for website
On July 12, Brest Regional Court pronounced the verdict on the expelled student-programmer of Brest State Technical University, 23-year-old political prisoner Kanstantsin Rudnitski. He was tried for two months for "creating a virtual button" on the Black map of Occupiers website.
According to the prosecution, on June 20, 2021, Rudnitski “using his laptop and a cell phone by means of correspondence in the chat-bot of the Telegram messenger contacted persons carrying out extremist activities”. The only concrete action he was accused of was creating a button for the Black Map of the Occupiers website, an online map with the addresses of security forces, judges, and other persons involved in repressions.
At first, Kanstantsin was charged under five articles of the Criminal Code, but during the process, the prosecutor's office reclassified his actions to harsher articles for aiding ‘Cyber-Partisans’: Part 6 of Article 16 and Part 3 of Article 203-1 (aiding in unlawful acts with personal data) and Part 6 of Article 16 and Part 3 of Article 130 (aiding in inciting hatred) of the Criminal Code. The case was transferred from the Maskoŭski District Court of Brest to Brest Regional Court. Judge Katsiaryna Hruda and prosecutor Alexander Bogush were appointed to this case.
Kanstantsin pleaded guilty only to aiding in unlawful acts with personal data. Brestskaya Gazeta" wrote about his position on the other four articles: there was no intent to insult or threaten anyone, let alone incite enmity, and no specific victims were mentioned in the case. As for the rest of the charges, the defendant claimed he had no intent to insult or threaten anyone, let alone incite hatred, and there were no specific victims in the case.
As a result, on 12 July 2022, Judge Katsiaryna Hruda sentenced the political prisoner to six years in a medium-security penal colony and a fine of BYN 3,200 rubles (USD 1,270).
