Fines for installing a cross

The court of the Shchuchyn district issued fines for head of the Union of Poles Mieczyslaw Jaskiewicz and 82-year-old activist Veranika Sebastsianovich for installing a cross.

Charter97.org has learnt it from Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist for Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland).

“Mieczyslaw Jaskiewicz received a fine of 40 penalty units (4 million rubles), Veranika Sebastsianovich was fined 25 penalty units (2.5 million rubles) under article 23.34 of the Code of Administrative Offences (unsanctioned rally). It was a usual show of the so called Belarusian justice. The argument of the defence, that the cross was set up on private land, so the action cannot be regarded as a rally, was ignored,” the journalist said.

It should be reminded that on May 12 members of the Union of Poles installed the cross in the village of Rachkoushchyna (the Shchuchyn district) to pay honour to the last commander of the Armija Krajowa (Home Army) Anatol Radziwonik, who was killed there in 1949.

A similar police report was made by the Shchuchyn police against Veranika Sebastsianovich, 82.

Two Union of Poles have been working in Belarus since 2005: the official one that supports the Belarusian government and the unofficial Warsaw-backed one that the Belarusian authorities refuse to register. Members of the latter suffer repression from the official authorities.