Katsia And Dasha Against "Hitler Youth"

• Iryna Khalip, Novaya Gazeta
• 22.02.2021, 13:02

Do the authors of the illegal verdicts realize that the "party grandees" have set them up?

To be honest, no one ever hoped that Dasha and Katsia would be released. It never happens this way in Belarus these days. And in general it never happens so that the judge would suddenly sentence to less than the prosecutor's demand. And the prosecutor wanted precisely two years. And so it happened.

Katsiaryna Andreyeva and Darja Chultsova, journalists of the Polish Belsat channel, broadcasting in Belarusian, were found guilty of organizing activities that grossly violate public order and sentenced (each of them) to two years in prison.

The court decided to confiscate the vests with the inscription "Press". Ordered to destroy the diaries.

According to the prosecution, on November 15 last year, Dasha and Katsia, while streaming from the "Square of Changes" (as Minsk residents now call the yard where Raman Bandarenka was killed), voiced on air "information from destructive accounts in social networks" and thus called people to the rally "in order to create a mass so that the actions of law enforcement officers could be countered. In addition, Dasha and Katsia stopped 19 routes of public transport with their stream and caused Minsktrans 11 thousand rubles (about $4.3 thousand) of damage.

The experts in linguistics, who analyzed the stream, found no appeals in the words of the journalists. The lawyers reminded that on that day, the mobile Internet was off, as it often happened on Sundays in Minsk, and Andreyeva and Chultsova would not have been able to coordinate people's actions via the stream, even if they really wanted to. However, this is the kind of trial when everything is clear enough as it is. "I consider it an act of revenge on the part of the special services for performing my professional duties," - Katsiaryna Andreyeva said on the first day of the trial.

In her last word she demanded acquittal and release of all political prisoners and reminded of the conditions under which Belarusian journalists have been working for the last six months.

From Katsiaryna Andreyeva's last word:

"Every time I went to work, I risked my health and life. Nevertheless, I headed to the epicenter of events. I managed to escape rubber bullets, explosions of stun grenades and hits of batons. My colleagues were much less fortunate. They were shot at and had their noses broken, but to this day not a single criminal case has been filed for violence against them or peaceful protesters.

On November 11, Raman Bandarenka was killed for not letting the ribbons be cut. On November 15, people came out to the Square of Changes.

I was covering those events live. For that I was thrown in jail on a trumped-up charge...

I demand an acquittal for myself, for my colleagues and for hundreds of political prisoners".

This trial was no different from dozens of other similarly absurd trials, which have been taking place in Belarus in recent weeks. These trials under Article 342 - the same article under which Dasha and Katsia were convicted - have become almost as usual as the trial conveyors of 1937. You get two or three years in prison under the charge that says "stepped onto the roadway being a member of a column," and if there is a riot police "victim," you might get four or five years. However, only journalists are tried solely for the fact that they are journalists.

There is one more important feature of Dasha and Katsia's trial.

The prosecutor, Alina Kas'yanchyk, who has asked for two years in prison for the journalists, is 22.

Investigator Ihar Kudzela, who was in charge of the case and slapped together the indictment, is 23.

Senior investigator Ihar Kurylovich is 30 years old.

And the judge of the Frunzenski District Court of Minsk, Natallia Buhuk, who, without a second's hesitation, sent Andreyeva and Chultsova to the colony, is 31.

This means that along with the fearless students who came out to protest and are now in jail or are searching for work after being expelled "for politics," "Hitler Youth" have also formed in Belarus, and they easily and joyfully, in anticipation of praise and bonuses, send their peers to jail.

"Do they realize that they have been set up? - Ihar Il'yash, Katsia Andreyeva's husband, writes on his Facebook. - And that this shameful and incredibly high-profile case is likely to give their reputations up for lost forever, and, accordingly, their future? Do they realize that they are stupidly trying to tie them to the system, which is dying and has not the slightest chance of survival?" No, Ihar, they don't. Because the "Hitler Youths" are being set up by experienced "party grandees" who know very well how to do it.

Iryna Khalip, Novaya Gazeta