Activist punished for issuing a newspaper

The Pinsk District Court held Ales Ramanovich guilty of issuing an underground paper, and punished him with a fine of 30 base values (some €260).

 

The activist of the Movement for Freedom (MFF) was accused of issuing and distributing the printed products without the publisher's imprint (Article 22.9, part 2 of the Administrative Code of the Republic of Belarus). Judge Ivan Korets considered only the issue of the paper proved. The militia presented several copies of The Pinsk Paper and the computer files with the materials from the paper that were found on the Ramanovich’s hard drive taken from him during the search.

 

However, the activist draws attention to several circumstances that do not allow agreeing with the judge’s decision.

 

“More than 2 months passed from the date of my alleged offence. Administrative cases could not be considered after such term. The only decision that could have been taken by the judge in such case was to free me from charge due to the time limitation. Second, the existence of the said files is a very indirect evidence, since anyone could find them on the web. Third, the court didn’t consider the testimony of my witnesses due to the fact that they, allegedly, are the interested persons.

 

Ramanovich also draws attention to the fact that the judge announced the intermission for the preparation of the decision for half an hour, but returned only in 1 hour and 20 minutes. The activist thinks that it was hard for the judge to take a decision and to write the motivation to it, since it doesn’t fit in the lawful framework. In his explanation, the judge used such legal notion as “the offence prolonged in time”.

 

The activist declares that his guilt wasn’t proved, that the punishment was made based on the assumptions, and that the case was framed up.

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