Oppositionist sentenced to restriction of liberty for demanding alternative service

• 4.06.2010, 12:45

Yauheni Yakavenka, a coordinator on creating the party Belarusian Christian Democracy, has been sentenced to a year of restriction of liberty.

The oppositionist is sent to an open-type facility for alleged draft-dodging. The judgment was delivered by the Thsentralny district court of Homel on June 4.

Yakavenka said in his final statement he didn’t admit his guilt, as he hadn’t received draft notices and hadn’t dodged the conscription, but just demanded to use the right for correspondence in the Belarusian language, which is guaranteed by the Constitution. The activist doesn’t agree with the sentence, which he finds unfair, and is going to appeal against the court’s decision.

Yakavenka reminded that the Savetski district court of Homel had found him not guilty of a similar same accusation.

As BelaPAN reported earlier, the young politician demanded that the military conscription office should carry on correspondence with him in Belarusian. He also tied to gain his right for alternative civil service. A criminal case under part 1 of article 435 of the Criminal Code (evading conscription) was initiated against him. A prosecutor asked three months of arrest for Yakavenka.

“According to the court’s decision, military enlistment office should abolish the practice of sentding draft notices, because I had an oral invitation to go to the military office, but I was punished for ignoring drat orders,” the activist commented on the judgment.