Journalist Poczobut to go on trial on November 28

November 15, BPN. The Hrodna Regional Court will start hearing a case against journalist and Polish minority activist Andrzej Poczobut on November 28, the Viasna Human Rights Center reported.

Judge Dźmitryj Bubienčyk will preside over the trial.

Poczobut, also known as the activist of the unregistered Union of Poles in Belarus, has been in custody since March 2021.

He was arrested after masked police officers raided his home in Hrodna on March 25.

On the same day, the Prosecutor General’s Office announced that it had instituted criminal proceedings against UPB leader Andzelika Borys and “other individuals.”

It said that the criminal case had been opened under Part Three of the Criminal Code’s Article 130, which penalizes incitement to racial, ethnic, religious or other social hatred and “the rehabilitation of Nazism.”

“The individuals, positioning themselves as members of the above mentioned union, have organized and held a number of illegal mass events with the involvement of under-18-year-olds in the city of Hrodna and in other localities in the [Hrodna] region since 2018 with a view to honoring members of anti-Soviet gangs that were active during and after the [1941-1945] Great Patriotic War, committed robberies, murdered Belarus’ civilians, destroyed property. Their actions were aimed at rehabilitating Nazism and justifying the genocide of the Belarusian people,” the Prosecutor General’s Office charged.

Later, prosecutors also accused Poczobut of calling for sanctions. Human rights defenders declared him a political prisoner.