Obscenities case against opposition youth sent back for revision

A judge of Minsk’s Leninski District Court ruled on September 21 that the obscenities case against Alyaksandra Klimovich, a member of the youth wing of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF), should be revised.

The girl and 15 other young BPF members, including four under 18-year-olds, were rounded up by police on August 18 while they were camping near the village of Kasava, Brest region. All of them were charged with speaking obscenities under Article 17.1 of the Administrative Offenses Code.

The hearing of Ms. Klimovich’s case took about 10 minutes. Judge Yuliya Shumskaya decided to send the case back to the Ivatsevichy district police department, as the charge sheet did not contain any evidence against the accused. “We only want to enjoy recreation in the countryside, and now we are being prosecuted for obscenities,” Ms. Klimovich told BelaPAN. “What obscenities do they mean if there were no people in a radius of three kilometers in that forest?”

The obscenities charge against another BPF youth, Ilya Bohdan, was heard on September 20. The trial was suspended until October 8 because of the absence of witnesses.

Other trials expected to follow next week.