Poets Arrested for Speaking Belarusian

• 13.12.2007, 14:03

Belarusian poets Ales Turovich and Syarzhuk Minskevich have been sentenced to an administrative arrest, Zmitser Vishnyou fined 175,000 Br. The authors were detained before the rally on December 12 for speaking Belarusian.

Poets were detained on December 12 near the Kastrychnitskaya Square for alleged hooliganism, Radio Svaboda informs.

“We were just sitting on a bench speaking Belarusian, and policemen didn’t like it,” the poets told in the court.

On December 12 in the evening a rally “For independent Belarus!” was held on the Kastrychnitskaya Square in Minsk. Some of the participants were beaten brutally. A young activist Zmitser Fedaruk was hospitalized.