On January 14, Mazyr district court completed hearing the case of 17-year-old Maksim Kuksachenka and 18-year-old Mikita Silivon.
Unfortunately, not many details have been reported: at the very first hearing, the trial was closed not only to journalists and the public, but also to relatives at the request of the prosecutors.
The two defendants were charged with ‘organisation of actions that grossly violate public order” (Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code) and ‘violence against a police officer’ (Art. 364).It should be recalled that the Belarusian authorities very often apply these articles in politically motivated cases.
As a result, Maksim Kuksachenka was sentenced to 1.5 years in a juvenile correctional facility, Mikita Silivon – to 1.5 years of imprisonment in a minimum security penal colony, the human rights centre Viasna reports. Notably, the prosecution side demanded they get twice as long terms. The both men were handcuffed in the courtroom.
Human rights activists also stress that the case ‘bears a strong resemblance to that of football fans Daniil Skipalski, Alyaksandr Suzko, Pavel Dvorak, Alyaksandr Tsimashenka and Kiryl Kanapatski’ who were detained on 5 May 2021 in Mazyr. The authorities claimed that the participants of the case were members of a ‘right-wing football group’ who sprayed pepper spray on the security officers and threw stones at them.
