About 100 participants of Freedom Day demonstration have trials today

Trials over participants of brutally dispersed action on Freedom Day are held today in courts of Tsentralny, Savetski, Partyzanski, and Maskouski Districts of Minsk. Human rights activists say about 100 demonstrators were detained yesterday.

The city department of internal affairs said today the administrative records against the detained had been drawn up for defiance and resistance to militiamen during the unauthorised demonstration.

The department also said “a question of brining to responsibility the applicants for the action held in Minsk on Tuesday will be settled today.” “This question will be settled in association with the prosecutor’ office of Minsk,” the city department of internal affairs said.

The Charter’97 press center asked famous human rights activist Uladzimir Labkovich to comment on the statement of the city department of internal affairs of the Minsk city executive committee:

“If the yesterday’s cruel crackdown of the peaceful demonstration is considered from the point of view of the Belarusian law, there were unlawful and abusive actions of the militia, because using of special facilities and physical force don’t meet the Law of the Republic of Belarus on Internal Affairs Agencies. The statement of the city internal affairs department that participants will be bought to responsibility for defiance to militia is absurd, because this article of the Administrative Code doesn’t provide administrative arrest. People must be in custody no more than 3 hours on this article. So, all of them will get arrests for participation in unauthorised event or for hooliganism, this practice is used cynically by the authorities. But in general, actions of militia and beating of peaceful demonstrators show that the Belarusian authorities ignore demands of the international community and continue to suppress democratic processes in the country.”