Aleh Hulak: Despite fairly mild sentence, there is new political prisoner

Head of Belarusian Helsinki Committee has commented on today’s sentence.

Let us remind you that Minsk Pershamaiski District Court has sentenced Vasil Parfyankou to 6 months of imprisonment. He was returned guilty of violating the preventive supervision regime. Parfyankou was imprisoned for “December 19, 2010 case” before. 

Human rights defender Aleh Hulak has noted that the sentence contains a number of “mitigating” circumstances: 

Hulak: "Belarusian Themis rarely leaves people free when they are sentenced to imprisonment. People are usually arrested right in the court room if they have not been already arrested. The sentence is also fairly mild. But severe sentences are not usually pronounced in such cases. The atmosphere in the country allows us to expect mild sentences”. 

At the same time the human rights defender has noted that a new political prisoner has appeared in Belarus. However, all the circumstances of the sentence have to be analyzed thoroughly.