Case of Milavidy festival to be considered by Brest Regional Court
On 8
August social activist Viktar Syrytsa filed an appeal to the Brest
Regional Court against the verdict of the Baranavichy City and
District Court concerning the Milavidy festival.
Bear in mind
that by her ruling of 31 July 2013 Judge Katsiaryna Hruda found Mr.
Syrytsa guilty under part 2 of Article 23.34, “preparing and
organizing an unauthorized rally” (which had allegedly taken place
in Milavidy on 2 June), and fined him 2 million rubles.
In
his appeal Viktar Syrytsa indicates that he considers this verdict as
unlawful due to the one-sided and biased clarification of the
circumstances of the administrative offense.
The activist
states that there was no unauthorized event on 2 June in Milavidy. He
just organized a trip to the official event, announced by the
state-owned newspaper “Nash Krai”. He didn't hold any rally in
Milavidy, but just explained the people why the event wasn't held and
what they could do instead of taking part in it.
“My guilt
is that I just organized a trip of amateurs of history and culture to
an official event and tried to organize the people, who were mislead
and offended by the district authorities and the state-owned
newspaper “Nash Krai” in order to ensure their civilized behavior
near the Milavidy monuments,” stated Mr. Syrytsa.
In his
appeal to the regional court he argues that Judge K. Hruda didn't
conduct an exhaustive, complete and all-sided study of circumstances
of the alleged administrative offence, which, according to Articles
12-14.1 of the Procedural-Executive Code cann serve as a reason for
reversing the verdict. Accrding to Viktar Syrytsa, the court ignored
the act about the absence of the rally in Milavidy on 2 June, signed
by nine people. The same is witnessed by the written errand of the
prosecutor to the Baranavichy District Police Department, which was
also ignored by the court. The prosecutor ordered the police
department to investigate the facts of the fact of holding the
cultural festival on 2 June in the village of Rusiny (Sasnovaya
Street, 5) in the Baranavichy district. Instead of an objective
investigation of the event in Rusiny, the police department drew up
three reports on Viktar Syrytsa for holding an unauthorized “rally”
in Milavidy.
Following Articles 9.6, 12.1, 12.9 and 12.14-1
of the Procedural-Executive Code of Administrative Offences of the
Republic of Belarus, Viktary Syrytsa asks the court to set aside the
verdict of the Judge of the the Baranavichy City and District Court
K. Hruda and drop the case due to the lac of corpus delicti.
