Pensioner Fined for Protesting against Lukashenka

27.09.2006.

Pinsk city court sentenced Pinkovichy village resident Leanid Karol to a fine of BYR 630,000 (about 300 US dollars). The pensioner was found guilty of carrying out a protest action on September 2 at a Pinsk stadium. Alexander Lukashenka visited the opening of that stadium after reconstruction the day before the protest. According to the police report, a 66-year-old pensioner came to the stadium with a hog-trough full of red tomatoes, and three posters: “Feeding-trough”, “Bloodsucker”, and “Lukashenka, gorge yourself and choke with it!”

Leanid Karol was detained by policemen. He was imprisoned for three days, and after that he was taken to court.

Answering the question what have made him stage the protest, Leanid Karol told that he is forced to pay everywhere: for a document from a village Soviet, for registering his son in his apartment. As said by Karol, when he asked the official in the village Soviet who had signed such laws, they said that Lukashenka had. “So I expressed my position, addressing the person who had invented that. I have such a right according to the constitution,” Mr. Karol said.