Minsk City Court to reconsider cases of five jailed Ukrainian demonstrators on May 2 :: Charter'97 :: News

The Minsk City Court is to hold a hearing on May 2 to consider complaints by Ukrainian citizens about their jail sentences. Five young Ukrainian men were arrested in Minsk on April 26 during the Belarusian police`s crackdown on an attempt by a few hundred anti-Lukashenko protesters to stage a march to mark the 19th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident.

The following day, the Ukrainians, members of the National Alliance youth movement, were sentenced to nine to 15 days in jail. In particular, Ihor Huz, a member of the Lutsk City Council, was sentenced to 10 days, Andrei Bokach to 15 days, Oleksandr Hrymalyuk and Oleksandr Mishlai to 10 days each, and Oleksey Panasyuk to nine days.

Along with the Ukrainians, the police seized some 10 Belarusians and 14 Russian citizens. The Russians were granted an early release by the Minsk City Court on Saturday. They left for Moscow on the same day and the jailed Ukrainians continued to be held in a detention center in Minsk despite repeated appeals by Ukrainian officials to release them.

In an April 30 telephone conversation with Vasily Pugachev, Belarus` first deputy minister of foreign affairs, Ukraine`s deputy foreign minister, Valentin Nalivaichenko, reminded him of the Ukrainian side`s petition that provisions of Belarus` Administrative Offenses Code be applied to the five jailed Ukrainians for the purpose of revising their sentences and releasing them, the press office of the Ukrainian foreign ministry said.

Mr. Pugachev reportedly insisted that the Ukrainian foreign ministry`s petition and complaints by the arrested Ukrainian citizens had been passed for consideration by the Minsk City Court.

Vasyl Serdyoha, Ukraine`s consul in Belarus, had a new meeting with the jailed Ukrainians on Saturday. He was accompanied by two representatives of the National Alliance movement, who had arrived in Minsk in the morning. They delivered warm clothes, books and newspaper to the arrested. "Out of the brought food, the guys took only juice, as they continued their hunger strike in protest against their detention," the National Alliance press office reported.

The Ukrainian consul reportedly gave the arrested the opportunity to phone their families in Ukraine.

On May 3, National Alliance members plan to start a "blockade" of the Belarusian embassy in Kyiv unless their arrested comrades are released. Protesting what is widely viewed as a crackdown on a peaceful demonstration, National Alliance members put up a tent camp near the embassy on April 27 and have been keeping a round-the-clock vigil there since then. "Every day at 1 p.m., when a lunch break begins in the diplomatic office, students burn several portraits of Lukashenko," wrote the Kyiv newspaper Segodnya on April 30.