TUT.BY Journalist Lyubov Kasperovich arrested for 15 days

The case is being con­sid­ered by judge Sergei Katser. Lubov is ques­tioned remote­ly via video link. Katser reads out that Lyubov is accused of par­tic­i­pat­ing in an unau­tho­rized mass event – Part 1 of Art. 24.23 Admin­is­tra­tive Code. The jour­nal­ist imme­di­ate­ly notes that anoth­er tri­al is tak­ing place next to her – ex-chair­man of the Unit­ed Civ­il Par­ty Ana­toly Lebed­ko is being tried, so she can bare­ly hear what the judge is say­ing.

The judge repeats his ques­tions, reads out her rights. Kasper­ovich makes her first peti­tion: 72 hours after her arrest ends 10 min­utes lat­er, and she still does not know the rea­son for her deten­tion and why she is in a tem­po­rary deten­tion facil­i­ty on Okrestin Street in Min­sk. She asks to famil­iar­ize her­self with the report of deten­tion and charges.

“This is the first time I hear from you what I am accused of,” the jour­nal­ist said to the judge.

“The report con­tains a note that you refused to receive a copy of the report, that your rights and oblig­a­tions were explained to you, and you refused to sign the report,” said the judge.

“It’s a lie. When they searched my belong­ings, fire hours after the arrest, I made a note in the report that they did not explain to me why I was arrest­ed,” said Kasper­ovich.

Judge Katser reject­ed the journalist’s peti­tion, she would not be able to get famil­iar­ized with the report. Kasper­ovich makes anoth­er peti­tion – to talk to lawyer Andrei Mochalov. The defence attor­ney also files a motion – to talk to his client, the court grants it but gives only 7 min­utes. All present is asked to leave the court­room, except for the lawyer and the judge’s sec­re­tary.

After talk­ing with the jour­nal­ist, lawyer Mochalov asks the judge to give him time to get famil­iar­ize him­self with the case. The judge grants the peti­tion, the court breaks until 11.40 am. Recall that on Mon­day, 17 May, the journalist’s deten­tion expires at about 11.15, that is, Lyubov must either be released or con­vict­ed before that time.

After reject­ing at least three lawyer’s peti­tions, the judge reads out the report: on 14 May from 10.10 am to no lat­er than 10.40 Lyubov Kasper­ovich was pick­et­ing. She was at the main entrance to the House of Jus­tice on Semashko, 33, where, as part of a group of cit­i­zens who gath­ered to express their polit­i­cal views and atti­tude to the tri­al, tak­ing place in the House of Jus­tice, she took part in an unau­tho­rized mass event.

I absolute­ly do not plead guilty,” said Lyubov Kasper­ovich.

Lyubov Kasper­ovich was detained while per­form­ing her pro­fes­sion­al duties on 14 May at the House of Jus­tice in Min­sk, where the tri­al in the “stu­dents case” was being held. At least 100 peo­ple gath­ered near the cour­t­house, wish­ing to sup­port the stu­dents: their rel­a­tives, friends, and car­ing Belaru­sians. Almost no one was allowed into the court­room, and the police asked the peo­ple who were near the build­ing to dis­perse, and lat­er the arrests began. Among the detainees was Lyubov Kasper­ovich, who was tak­en to the police depart­ment of the Moskovsky dis­trict.

Before the arrest, Lyubov inter­viewed friends of one of the accused – she ful­filled her pro­fes­sion­al duties, prepar­ing a report.

“We were talk­ing, when sud­den­ly some­one shout­ed: ‘OMON!’ We saw peo­ple in black run­ning towards us and we start­ed to run away from them. The TUT.BY jour­nal­ist stum­bled and fell, the riot police rushed at her,” eye­wit­ness­es of the events told TUT.BY.

Late in the evening, some of the detained stu­dents were released from the police depart­ment with reports. Their tri­al will take place on Wednes­day, 19 May. Lyubov was tak­en to a deten­tion cen­tre on Okrestin Street. Our col­league spent the week­end there, a lawyer was not allowed to vis­it her. Kasperovich’s case was pre­sum­ably to be con­sid­ered on Sat­ur­day, 15 May. But for the whole day, the mate­ri­als of the case were not trans­ferred to the court from the police depart­ment. Our col­league spent the whole week­end at Okrestin Street.

Cur­rent­ly, 16 media rep­re­sen­ta­tives are behind bars. Today in Mogilev, the court sen­tenced Alexan­der Burakov and Vladimir Lapt­se­vich to 20 days of admin­is­tra­tive arrests, who were detained three days ago at the cour­t­house, where even the rel­a­tives of the defen­dants were not allowed to the tri­al of Pavel Sev­er­inets and activists of the “Euro­pean Belarus”. Ear­li­er pho­tog­ra­ph­er Tatiana Kapitono­va was sen­tenced to 10 days in jail for tak­ing pho­tos of the women’s ral­ly.

Three jour­nal­ists are serv­ing a crim­i­nal sen­tence: Kate­ri­na Andree­va and Darya Chultso­va from Bel­sat were sen­tenced to two years in prison for a live stream from action in mem­o­ry of Roman Bon­darenko, Kate­ri­na Bori­se­vich, sen­tenced to six months in prison for an arti­cle that Roman Bon­darenko was sober, is to be released next week. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Press Club, jour­nal­ists Kse­nia Lut­ski­na and Andrey Pochobut, media man­ag­er Andrei Alexan­drov are await­ing tri­al in the pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­tre.