The trial of the chairman of "Viasna", the Nobel laureate

Ales Bialiatsky

, his deputy and FIDH vice-president

Valyantsin Stefanovich

, the coordinator of the campaign "Human rights defenders for free elections"

Vladimir Labkovych

and the human rights defender

Dmitry Solovyov

(in absentia) is at the stage of researching the written materials of the case.

At the court, 213 volumes of the case out of 284 were announced, "Viasna" reports.

Bialatsky denies that "Viasna" paid the fines

In the written materials of the case, there are many documents related to the activities of the Human Rights Center "Viasna", as well as information about the crossing of the state border of Belarus in different years since 2016 by members of "Viasna".

As Ales Bialiatski

noted at the court

, the prosecution has no information that the 89 people identified by the investigation moved money across the border, and did not leave Belarus on personal matters.

Politically liberated human rights defenders call it "assumptions of the investigation".

In addition, Ales Bialiatski draws the court's attention to the fact that it is not mentioned anywhere that he, Labkovich and Stefanovich somehow organized the movement of cash across the customs border.

"Let them specifically say that the "Viasna" HRC is an organized criminal group, and then they consider our activities under such a court, otherwise it is not clear who we are.

If we are smugglers, then we are smugglers;

if it's a criminal group, then it's a criminal group," Ales Bialiatski said at the court.

According to the accusation according to Part 2 of Art.

342 of the Criminal Code, "Viasna" human rights defenders allegedly "deliberately carried out the preparation of citizens to participate in group actions that grossly violate public order, as well as financing and material support of such actions under the guise of human rights and charity activities, including on behalf of the "Viasna" HRC. , unregistered fund "BY_HELP", in the period from May 2020 to July 14, 2021".

As evidence of this, the prosecution presents, among other things, the correspondence of human rights defenders.

But they claim that payments were made exclusively by the "BY_HELP" fund.

"Negotiations in the Facebook group, which were removed from the memory of my phone - the conversation was about helping victims of political repression.

And here there is a specific conversation about who is engaged in this help, and I write that they - the conversation was about "BY_HELP" - will compensate fines and daily allowances, if anyone was not too lazy to contact them," said Ales Bialiatski at the court.

The human rights defender explains that the Human Rights Center "Viasna" did not provide assistance in compensating fines and per diems.

In particular, human rights defenders are accused of: paying fines, paying monetary compensation for funds spent on paying fines;

payment of food bills in places where fines are served in the form of administrative arrests, payment of lawyers.

Nasta Loika refused to testify in court

According to this fact, at the stage of the investigation, the human rights defender

Nast Loika

was questioned as a suspect .

She refused to testify about the activities of the Viasna Human Rights Center and the work of its members.

At the same time, she denied the fact that she moved money across the border.

Nevertheless, she appears in the indictment as a member of an "organized group" according to Part 4 of Art.

228 of the Criminal Code ("smuggling by an organized group").

Many documents without signatures and seals

The defendant

Vlad Labkovich

drew the court's attention to the fact that the case file contains a large number of documents without signatures and seals, which constitute the evidence base in the case.

"So, they are legally worthless," Vlady noted at the court.

Also, Wladimir Labkovich noted that it is incorrect to consider the following as evidence in the case of an application for grants:

"It only means that someone wanted to get this money, but not the fact that they got it."

The government drew attention to the fact that he declared this money and paid tax on it.

But this money was seized and recognized as physical evidence.

"It is impossible to talk about the money presented in the indictment as a total amount."