Pavel Seviarynets: We Will Demand Release Of Eduard Palchys Right In Court Hall On Friday

The sentence to the founder of the website 1863x.com may be pronounced this Friday.

The sentence in the case of founder of the website 1863x.com, blogger Eduard Palchys will be pronounced on Friday, October 28 in the Minsk city court. Co-Chairman of the steering committee for creating the party “Belarusian Christian Democracy” Pavel Seviarynets has informed this to Radio Liberty. He has been holding a picket in support of Eduard Palchys near the building of the Minsk city court for the seventh day in a row, together with other activists. According to Pavel Seviarynets, the action in support of the founder of the website 1863x.com will take place on October 28 as well.

“There will be a solidarity action. They should admit everyone to the court hall for the sentence pronouncing. I think a lot more people will come and I am not sure the court hall is big enough to admit all of them,” - the activist has said.

However, the court has not confirmed this information to the journalists.

We remind, Eduard Palchys is charged with having committed crimes under Part 1 Article 130 (incitement to racial, national or religious enmity or discord) and Part 2 Article 343 (distribution of pornographic materials) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus.

Eduard was detained in January 2016 in Russia, and in May the blogger was extradited to Belarus where he was taken into custody straightaway.

On August 25, the Central district court of Minsk considered the case on recognition of the information product, published at the website 1863x.com, as extremist. As a result of the closed court trial, 9 articles published at the above-mentioned website were found extremist.

On the eve of the trial, the international human rights organization “Reporters without Borders” urged the Belarusian authorities to release Eduard Palchys “immediately and unconditionally”.