Stanislau Paulinkovich

served full term, released

Former prisoner

Date of birth: 20 December 1988

Date of detention: 29 March 2021

Charges indicted:

  • Art. 391 of the Criminal Code — Insulting a judge

Sentence: 2 years

Penalty: imprisonment in a general-security penal colony

Prison sentence start date: 29 March 2021

Date of release: 24 October 2022

Judge: Maksim Kurpachenka

Prosecutor: Aliaksandr Staravoitau

Groups: Activists

Stanislau Paulinkovich is an opposition activist in Mahilioŭ.

On May 2, 2020, Paulinkovich took part in a local protest. On May 8, he was detained and charged with participating in an unauthorized mass event. The activist was sentenced to 15 days in prison. A couple of days before his release, on May 21, Paulinkovich was taken to court again to stand trial for disobeying police. The trial was secret, as neither journalists, nor human rights activists and even the defendant's family knew that he had been taken out of the detention center for another trial.

Under one of the police reports, Paulinkovich was fined 1,215 rubles, under the other - another 15 days of detention. It was at this moment that Paulinkovich verbally attacked Judge Aksana Ratnikava, using words of varying degrees of insult. For this he was charged under Art. 391 of the Criminal Code (insult of a judge).

On October 29, Judge Kurpachanka of the Mahilioŭ District Court sentenced Paulinkovich to three years in an open correctional facility. The sentence was reduced by one year due to an amnesty.

On March 29, 2021, Paulinkovich was sent to serve his sentence at penitentiary No. 39 in the town of Krupki.

It was later learned that from February 15 to April 29, Stanislau was serving administrative arrest. On April 29, 2022, his custody measure was changed from the restriction of freedom in an open-type penitentiary to five and a half months in a general-security penal colony. It is not known exactly what was the reason for it. On 10 May he was transferred to Žodzina prison.

Paulinkovich served his sentence in full and was released on October 24, 2022.

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