Three Years in Prison for Caricatures
Press Service of the Belarusian Association of Journalists
Today, Aliaksandr Zdvizhkou is sentenced to 3 year high security detention for “fomenting religious dissension” according to the Article 130, part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus. This decision was taken today by the judge of the Minsk city court Ruslan Aniskievich after having finished legal investigation concerning deputy editor of Zgoda newspaper.
Mr. Zdvizhkou refused to recognize himself guilty and will be appealing the decision at the court of the highest instance. He had time to say about his intention to journalists who were trying to talk to him after the judgment was announced.
The court decision has no legal strength yet and there is time to appeal it. In the meantime it became known that prosecutor was calling for more severe punishment of 4 years of detention.
Hearings started on January 11th and at the very beginning were open to the public. Aliaksandr Zdvizhkou challenged the jury and declared that charges put forward against him were not serious and the judge had preconceived attitude to his case.
Mr. Zdvizhkou had also time to say that he was arrested on November 18th 2007 when he came to Belarus to visit his father’s grave. Since that time he was detained in KGB prison.
The judge Aniskievich refused the challenge as being non-founded and satisfied the prosecutor’s request to continue hearings under the closed regime so that “not to hurt the feelings” of court case participants.
Let us remind that the reason for starting criminal investigation was publishing of caricatures on Prophet Muhammad in Zgoda newspaper (issue #6, 18-26.02.2006). These caricatures first published in Danish press provoked public protests in a number of Muslim countries and caused international scandal.
On February 21st 2006 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus issued a statement as regards the publication of caricatures. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemns any premeditated actions, which could provoke fomenting religious dissension… distrust between national and religious communities of Belarus”,– the statement said.
On February 22nd 2006 Belarusian KGB based on the sanction of the Prosecutor General Deputy conducted a search of the newspaper Zgoda headquarters. The same day there was commenced a criminal action according to the Article 130, part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (“fomenting religious dissension”). As the office of the Prosecutor General communicated to Interfaks information agency, “The criminal persecution was started as a result of examination conducted by the Prosecutor General Office and KGB. The examination was made on the basis of appeal to the law enforcement agencies submitted by the Committee on Religious Denominations and Nationalities as well as Muslim communities of Belarus”.
During the search computer discs, other data media, some issues of the newspaper and some finance documents were confiscated. The founder of the newspaper Aliaksei Karol and Aliaksandr Zdvizhkou were questioned in KGB. The apartment flat of Mr. Karol was searched either. According to Mr. Karol the caricatures were published without his permission. The editor-in-chief deputy was punished and the dissemination of the issue was stopped.
On February 23 2006 the Prosecutor General Office sent a communication to the Ministry of Information requesting it to take measures to suspend or stop the publication of the non-State newspaper Zgoda. According to the head of Law, Information and PR Department of the Prosecutor General Office the editorial board of the newspaper violated the Article 5 of the Law on Press and Other Media of the Republic of Belarus, which forbids using mass media for fomenting national, social, race and religious intolerance.
The same day the Ministry of Information made a notice to the newspaper in line with Article 5 of the Law on Press and Other Media of the Republic of Belarus for publishing caricatures on Prophet Muhammad. That was the second notice for violating the Article 5 of the Law mentioned.
On March 6th 2006 The Ministry of Information appealed to the Supreme Economic Court to stop the activities of the newspaper. The appeal said that was the repeated violations by the editorial board of the Article 5 of the Law mentioned were the reason to do that. Moreover, the Ministry asked to suspend the newspaper’s publication without waiting for court’s examination because “respondent can violate the Law on Press” during the period prior to the case examination in the court.
On March 7th 2006 the judge of the Supreme Economic Court Aksana Mihniuk decided to satisfy the solicitation and to suspend the publication of the newspaper prior to any decision being the result of court examination.
On March 17th 2006 the same judge Mrs. Mihniuk took a decision to stop the newspaper’s activities. In the meantime the period allocated by the Law to appeal a decision as for the second notice was not over.
In March 2006 the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Belarus started the criminal persecution of deputy editorof the Zgoda newspaper Aliaksandr Zdvizhkou for having published caricatures on Prophet Muhammad. However, the case was suspended due to the fact that investigating authority did not manage to elucidate the location of the accused. At the beginning of January 2008 it became known that Mr. Zdvizhkou was arrested and pup in prison.
