Trial against Dashkevich scheduled January 30

Minsk's Pershamaiski district court will hear the case against Zmitser Dashkevich, who is accused of violating the rules of the preventive supervision, on January 30.

The trial begins at 14:40, former political prisoner Zmitser Dashkevich told BelaPAN news agency.

He said he wouldn't attend the trial, because he would be working. “I think that court officers are criminals, who repeatedly fabricated cases. I don't think I must prove them anything. It has no sense. I don't consider myself guilty,” the politician said.

Former political prisoner Zmitser Dashkevich, a co-head of the international organisation Young Front, received a warning for violating the rules of the preventive supervision after he hadn't appeared in the Pershamaiski district corrections department on December 19. He should appear for checks every first, third and fourth Thursday of a month. According to Dashkeivch, he just forgot about it. A corrections department called Dashkevich next morning and offered to visit the correction department. Dashkevich came, but a police report for the rules violation was drawn up.

The former political prisoner says corrections officers usually don't make reports if a person visits the correction department a day later. But the corrections officer said his bosses ordered him to make a report.

Dashkevich was released from prison No. 1 in Hrodna on August 28, 2013, after almost three years of imprisonment. He was arrested ahead of the latest presidential elections, on December 18, 2010. He was convicted for “malicious hooliganism” and then for “persistent failure to obey demands of prison officers”. Dashkevich should remain under preventive supervision for 6 months after the release. He cannot leave home from 20:00 to 6:00.

Dashkevich was detained in Minsk on November 6 as Young Front members were collecting signatures to return the historical name Frantsyskanskaya to Lenin Street. The politician was tried for resistance to police officers and given three days in custody. Dashkevich didn't admit his guilt. He said the police report was trumped-up and regarded the actions by the authorities as the “continuation of the crackdown on dissidents”.

Dashkevich was warned on December 5 that the preventive supervision could be extended and tightened if he “continued to disobey police officers”.