Punishment to two participants of Process of 14 mitigated
The Tsentralny district court of Minsk considered suggestions of militia officers to mitigate punishment to Ales Straltsou and Ales Charnyshou.
As Radio Svaboda reports, they guys must have served the remaining term of restraint of liberty (one year, two months and fifteen days). The court changed restraint of liberty to correctional labour. They young men must pay 15 per cent of their payment to the state during this period.
Straltsou and Charnyshou were sentenced to 1.5 years of restraint of liberty in the Case of 14 last year. They were accused of organizing riots during rallies of entrepreneurs.
Though now liberty Straltsou and Charnyshou is not restricted, they don’t have the right to leave the country.
On June 11, another participant of the Process of 14, Mikhail Pashkevich, was included in the amnesty. He was included in the amnesty as he had served one third of the sentence (nine months) and the article, under which he had been tried, is not serious.
The Case of 14 is a criminal case under article 342 of the Criminal Code of Belarus instigated against participants of a peaceful protest rally of entrepreneurs held in Minsk on January 10, 2008.
The Tsentralny district court sentenced youth activist Andrei Kim to 1.5 years in penal colony for participation in this rally. Kim was released in August 2008. Activist of the civil campaign “European Belarus” Alyaksandr Barazenka was sentenced to a year of restraint of liberty without sending him to a correction facility; he was in remand jail since October 27 to trial on December 9, 2008. The rest participants of the Process of 14 – Artsyom Dubski, Alyaksei Bondar, Mikhail Kryvau, Mikhail Pashkevich, Alyaksandr Straltsou, Alyaksandr Charnyshou, Tatsyana Tsishkevich, Mikhail Subach, and Pavel Vinahradau– got 2 years of restraint of liberty without sending them to correction facilities. Minor Maksim Dashuk was sentenced to 1.5 years of restraint of liberty.
Amnesty International human rights watchdog recognized participants of the Process of 14 prisoners of conscience in 2009.
