Politically motivated criminal prosecutions continued in March – Viasna

April 5, BPN. The trend towards politically motivated criminal prosecutions and convictions continued in March, the Viasna center said in a monthly report.

The human rights center said at least 62 people (44 men and 18 women) were criminally convicted in politically motivated cases last month. In total, at least 162 people may have suffered reprisals.

According to Viasna, Belarusian courts sentenced 36 people to prison and 24 people to restricted freedom, a form of house arrest.

One person was fined 14,800 rubels (some $5,900) as the main punishment, and 12 were fined a total of 488,400 rubels on top of their restricted freedom/prison sentences.

Viasna noted that higher courts tended to toughen sentences delivered by first-instance courts. It observed that trend for three consecutive months. In some cases, restricted freedom sentences were replaced with imprisonment.