Members of Conservative Christian Party BPF Receive Court Warnings for Setting Crosses in Memory of Stalin's Victims

12.11.2003.

Five activists of Vitsebsk Conservative Christian Party BPF received court warnings for participation in an unauthorized public action. This decision was taken by Judge Halina Zubrytskaya. She considered the cases against the opposition activists, detained by the police for setting crosses in the place of mass fusillades of victims of Stalin’s repressions.

Branislava Stankevich, Vitsebsk

None of the action participants took the blame neither in the celebration of Dziady (the Ancestors’ Day) nor in violation of the State legislation of Belarus. However, all of them pointed out that the present sitting was conducted with evident violations of process norms by Judge of Minsk Kastrychnitski Borough Court Halina Zubrytskaya.

(Matsveyew); “Two police witnesses were present in the court hall. Judge summoned us and them together and they were there all the time. I think that by this Judge violated the Process Code.”

By the way, the court warning was not the only punishment for Dziady: they were detained by the police for one day. However, the court didn’t pay any attention to it. Even today’s warning, according to Ales Pazniak, wasn’t announced properly, -- Judge didn’t read any verdict, only said “I warn all of you”.

Another defendant, Yan Dziarzhawtsaw, turned Judge’s attention to the fact that a new, rewritten police report was attached to his case, the Judge didn’t react to his remark.

(Dziarzhawtsaw): “At first the police wrote that we organized a meeting, then rewrote it as a procession… They wrote that I was carrying a flag, and today these words have disappeared. I think that the police report was falsified again.”

Having summed up the violations they noticed, the CCP BPF Members decided to apply to the supreme court instances against the lawless actions of Judge.

The trial of another two detained party members, Aliaksandr Salawyan and Uladzimir Pleshchanka, will take place on 17 November.

(Radio “Liberty”)

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