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.