Journalist Sentenced to Ten Days' Arrest for “Hooliganism”

On Monday, May 19, court started hearing the case. The journalist motioned to invite a lawyer and to postpone the hearing, which the judge upheld the motioned: the next hearing was scheduled for May 21 and the journalist was set free. However, the police officers who took him to the court, announced that they were detaining him again.

At 3 pm, the journalist was taken to the courtroom again, and the hearing proceeded and ended with a ten days' imprisonment under charges of minor hooliganism.

According to Raman Kisliak, human rights defender from Brest, it was an arbitrary detention and the case was falsified in order to imprison the activist so as to prevent hm from taking part in civil actions during the Ice Hockey World Championship in Minsk.

We remind that on March 31 Yauhen Skrabets received a warning for contributing to the Belarusian Radio Racyja – a foreign mass medium without accreditation. On April 26 the journalist was summoned as a witness in an administrative case, as if he saw some fighting, but at the questioning he was again asked about his work for the radio.

18 activists in all are currently under preventive arrest for the time of the Ice Hockey World Championship.