Pinsk student sentenced to 10 days of arrest for “unauthorized picketing” because of white and red stripes on his backpack

February 1, BPN. Illia Dabradziej, 19-year-old student from Palesse State University (Pinsk, Brest region), was found guilty of unauthorized picketing (Article 24.23 of the Administrative Code) for coming to the trial against journalist and football player Aliaksandr Ivulin on January 17 carrying a backpack with white, red and white stripes, Viasna Human Rights Center informed.

Dabradziej was detained in the building of the Partyzanski District Court of Minsk. On January 19, judge Natallia Dziadkova of the same court found him guilty of “violating the order of organization and holding of a mass event.”

On 19 January, political prisoner Ivulin was found guilty under the Article 342, part 1 of the Criminal Code (organization and active participation in the group actions that grossly violate the public order, combined with evident disobedience to the legal demands of the authorities and resulting in disruption of transports and enterprises) and sentenced to two years of imprisonment.

Since the last presidential election on August 9, 2020, over 4,000 people have been punished with a total of 60,500 days in politically motivated administrative arrests, human rights defenders note. During the same period, more than 1,600 Belarusians were fined.