Julia Darashkevich and Iryna Kozlik fined for 360 dollars each
They got punished for non-sanctioned picket. It turned out that they needed to obtain the city executive committee's permit to take pictures with a teddy bear.
AUGUST 9
15.00. Julia Darashkevich fined for 3 million roubles.
14.44. The judge left to think over the sentence.
14.38. Photo-fact: the journalists did not coordinate their photo-session with the teddy bear with... Minsk city executive committee! This is written in the protocol of detention of "Kamsamolskaya Pravda in Belarus" journalist Iryna Kozlik.
14.30. Iryna Kozlik has been summoned to the trial as a witness.
14.05. Trial against Julia Darashkevich has been resumed after a 10-minutes break. She is giving evidence.
***
13.15 Iryna Kozlik has been fined for 3 million roubles. The "Kamsamolskaya Pravda" journalist got the fine allegedly for the non-sanctioned picket. She is already free (photo).
Trial against Julia Darashkevich has started. Dzmitry Paulyuchenka judges her as well.
***
12.00 The witnesses-policemen told the court about the detention of Darashkevich and Kozlik. According to them, it seems to them in the beginning that the girls were holding a picket. However, they allegedly realized later that there was no picket and the girls did not swear in public.
In connection with that, Iryna Kozlik's lawyer filed an appeal to close the case due to absense of corpus delicti.
***
11.00 Iryna Kozlik's trial started first. Two witnesses of detention were summoned to the court upon the lawyer's request.
HR defenders Alena Tankachova, Uladzimir Labkovich, journalists Volha Babak and Yanina Melnikava managed to get to the court hall.
Melnikava has informed on her Facebook page how the witness - riot policeman Sukhalet - spoke in court. "Sukhalet claims that he was wearing a uniform and that they introduced themselves. They decided that the girls were holding a picket as there was a teddy bear and they talked".
***
Journalists to stand trial for "picket in form of photography"
Iryna Kozlik and Julia Darashkevich have been delivered to the Soviet district court in a civil car.
There are about 20 people near the court building - the girls' friends and colleagues. Euroradio's correspondent Ales Piletski reports from the site of the events.
The journalists informed that both of them were kept in a cell in the Soviet district police department for the whole night.
Euroradio has found out that Dzmitry Paulyuchenka is appointed as a judge for this trial. He did not get into the EU black list although he did sentence the December 2012 arrestees to detentions. This Spring, Paulyuchenka issued a justifying verdict to the National Bolshevist Yauhen Kontush, accused of organization of a non-sanctioned event.
No one is admitted to the court building.
Photo by: Dzmitry Brushko, nn.by
***
Journalists Darashkevich and Kozlik spend night in the police department
AUGUST 8
***
20.43 The police refused to accept water for the detained journalists. Civil activist Mikhail Pashkevich informed this on his Facebook page.
According
to him, the policeman said "Let them feel all the challenges". The
girls' colleagues do not exclude that they might spend the night in the center
for isolation of law-breakers in Akrestsina Street, Radio Liberty informs.
It is known that the policemen forced photographer Julia Darashkevich and
"Komsomolskaya Pravda" journalist Iryna Kozlik to write explanatory
notes. Let us remind you, the girls were detained in the center of Minsk during
a photo-session with teddy bears. This is the way journalists
are conducting an action of solidarity with arrested Anton Surapin, who was the
first to publish the photos of the Swedish teddy bears, dropped from a plane
over Belarus. The youngster is kept in the
KGB prison - they accuse him of complicity to the Swedes, who violated the
state border of the Republic of Belarus.
