Trial Over Mikita Sasim Scheduled on May 4 :: Charter'97 :: News

The trial over the youth leader Mikita Sasim is to start on May 4 at 9.30 a.m. in the court of Baranavichy district of Baranavichy. Mikita Sasim is charged with draft evasion, despite of the fact that last autumn he was granted a deferment because of a brain injury during a dispersal of a peaceful protest rally on September 16, 2005. The youth leader is kept in a remand prison for a second month. He faces up to 3 years in prison. Human rights activists say that the criminal action against Mikita Sasim is politically motivated.

On September 16, 2005 policemen disbanded a protest in commemoration of abducted politicians in Minsk. Policemen seized portraits of the disappeared and national flags. On that day one of the Zubr leaders Mikita Sasim lift up his jeans shirt as a symbol of resistance to the dictatorship. He was brutally beaten up by riot policemen and hospitalized with a traumatic brain injury.

Before the elections, on March 14, Mikita Sasim was arrested. Riot policemen seized him right in the street of Minsk. In the police department he was taken bad. An ambulance was called in. He was operated on appendicitis in the night, and in the morning the handcuffed youth leader was taken to his native town of Baranavichy. In Baranavichy prison Mikita was chained to the bed and was guarded by policemen. In a week he was hurled to the ward of pre-trial detention center. As it turned out, a criminal action had been brought up against him for “draft evasion”. The military enlistment office didn’t want to consider beating up by riot policemen and about brain concussion.