Minsk court convicts participants of memorial protest

The Court of Minsk’s Tsentralny district heard today the charges brought against five participants of a protest staged on Saturday outside the detention center in Valadarski Street, where a prisoner named Ihar Ptsichkin died earlier this summer.

As a result, the prisoner’s pregnant sister received a warning, while the other detainees were sentenced to small fines. All of them were found guilty of illegal picketing (Art 23.34 of the Administrative Code).

Ihar Ptsichkin, 21, died under mysterious circumstances in pre-trial prison No. 1 on August 4. Officially, the cause of death was a heart attack. However, the prisoner’s relatives and friends suggest that he died after being severely beaten. The web-site “Platform Innovation” posted photos of Pstichkin taken after his death, which showed large bruises on his forearms, wrists, arms, in the ribs and damages below the knee. The Investigative Committee told his relatives that it had launched a probe into the prisoner’s death.