Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “Today the “court” passed a sentence to Pavel Spiryn, my confidant in the elections and a YouTube-blogger. He was accused of “willful acts aimed at inciting social hatred.” What does “court” mean by that?
Pavel made a film about drug trafficking in Belarus, in which he claimed that the drug business was controlled by the Interior Ministry. Security officials did not respond to the accusations, but simply demanded to put the film on the list of extremist ones. In the video titled “The Dark Secret of Belarus' Prosecutor General. Carte Blanche for Sadism” Pavel told about the harsh crackdown of peaceful protesters by security forces on August 9-12. But is it incitement of social hatred?
“My videos are just criticism. Tough, but criticism. For example, the newspaper of Alyaksandr Lukashenka's administration of 300,000 circulation spreads even more criticism than I do. Calling to take away their children from the protesters. Comparing protesters to fascists. And no one accuses these journalists and editors of inciting social hatred.
We have a TV in our cell. Every evening, there is talk about the need for dialogue. Dialogue involves mutual respect, decency, legitimacy. I ask the high court to demonstrate by its sentence what the state puts in the concept of “dialogue,” Pavel said in his last word at the “trial.”
Now we know what the state means by dialogue — 4.5 years of colony. So much got Pavel Spiryn, who wanted to make Belarus better.
Now Pavel is in a pre-trial detention center at Volodarsky Street in Minsk. He will be there for some time yet while the verdict is appealed. Write him a letter. Pavel should know that we don't forget the heroes of change.
Two resources that will help you with this:
http://politzek.me, a site with a list of political prisoners and all the data necessary for writing.
http://vkletochku.org will help you send a letter anonymously and even from another country”.
