Siarhei Savich
sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment
Prisoner
Date of birth: 13 July 1977
Date of detention: 2 August 2022
Charges indicted:
- Art. 361-1 of the Criminal Code — Creation of an extremist formation, or participation in it
- Art. 130 of the Criminal Code — Incitement to hatred
Sentence: 3 years
Penalty: imprisonment in a general-security penal colony
Prison sentence start date: 13 March 2023
Judge: Valiantsina Kunitskaya
Prosecutor: Aliaksei Yaroshyk
Prison: Penal colony No. 17
Cases: Protests in Pinsk
Statement on the status of a political prisoner
Siarhei Savich from Pinsk was detained on August 2, 2022. He was sentenced to 15 days in jail for sharing a message from an “extremist” Telegram channel.
After administrative detention, Savich was not released as he was charged with “inciting social hatred” (Art. 130 of the CC). Later he was also accused of “calls for sanctions and other actions aimed at harming the national security of the Republic of Belarus” (part 3 of Art. 361 of the CC).
He was placed in pre-trial detention.
On November 28, 2022, Savich was found guilty under Article 130 of the Criminal Code for a comment he had posted in a local chatroom. The prosecution claimed that in this comment, the man called for violence against police officers. Judge Valiantsina Kunitskaya agreed with the penalty requested by the state prosecutor Aliaksei Yaroshyk and sentenced the political prisoner to three years of imprisonment in a general-security penal colony.
