Ethnic Polish journalist faces four years in Belarusian jail
PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle
14.06.2011 09:05
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Polish journalist libel trial underway in Belarus - 14.06.2011
The trial of Polish minority activist and journalist Andrzej Poczobut, who is charged with insulting and defaming President Alexander Lukashenko, begins in Belarus today. If found guilty he faces four years imprisonment.
Andrzej Poczobut. Photo: PAP
Poczobut - an ethnic Pole who has already served a prison sentence following protests against what were regarded internationally as rigged presidential elections in December last year which saw Lukashenko re-elected for a fourth term in office - is being charged with insulting the Belarusian head of state in ten articles published in the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper in Poland this year and in 2010.
Oksana Poczobut, the wife of the journalist who is also an activist for the Union of Poles in Belarus, an organisation not recognised by the Belarusian government - says she is not hopeful of a dismissal in a trial which will be held behind closed doors and not open to the media at the Leninski District Court in Grodno, western Belarus.
“I am not hopeful of a dismissal,” she told Gazeta Wybocza. “Andrzej said to not listen to the optimists”.
Poczobut was arrested twice following the protests in Minsk on 19 December, where was first fined and then imprisoned for 15 days.
Four percent of Belarus's 9.7 million population are ethnic Poles. (pg)