Andrei Navitski
sentenced to 5 years in prison
Date of birth: 10 January 1981
Date of detention: 1 June 2021
Charges indicted:
Art. 342 of the Criminal Code — Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them
Art. 295 of the Criminal Code — Unlawful acts against firearms, ammunition and explosives
Art. 368 of the Criminal Code — Insulting the President of the Republic of Belarus
Art. 411 — Malicious disobedience to the demands of administration of the correctional institution
Sentence: 5 years and 4 months
Penalty: imprisonment in a maximum-security penal colony
Judge: Tatsiana Shotsik, Volha Serakova
Prison: Penal colony No. 11
Andrei Navitski was sentenced on September 30, 2021 by the Lieninski District Court of Minsk to five years in a medium-security penal colony under Articles 368, 342 and 295 of the Criminal Code for participating in a peaceful assembly, insulting the president and possessing 33 grams of gunpowder.
On September 27, 2020, Navitski took an active part in actions that "grossly violated public order". He joined a group of protesters in central Minsk, held a white-red-white flag and "publicly shouted slogans aimed at disrupting public peace." Navitski walked on the road, which entailed disruption of transport. His actions were allegedly associated with disobedience to the lawful demands of the police officers.
Human rights defenders learned that on June 13, 2022, Andrei was tried under Article 411 of the Criminal Code (malicious disobedience to demands of the administration of a correctional facility). A Babrujsk Municipal and Regional Court Judge Volha Serakova sentenced him to four more months of imprisonment and raised his custody level to high.
