An extremist who wanted to burn down the Russian embassy in Minsk got off with a fine
Hooligan Philip Shavrov, who smeared paint on the hands of a Pushkin sculpture in Minsk in January, was fined 1350 Belarusian rubles (40,4 thousand rubles), although the articles of the Belarusian Criminal Code under which his actions were qualified provide for a prison term of up to 6 years.
This was reported by the human rights group “Legal Initiative,” a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Shavrov partially admitted guilt. He denied hooligan motives and explained that he painted the hands of the Pushkin monument because he did not agree with Russian foreign policy.
In addition to the monument to Pushkin, Shavrov desecrated the monument to fallen police officers.
Belarusian human rights activists recognized Shavrov as a political prisoner and demanded that his criminal prosecution be stopped. They noted that there was no crime in Shavrov’s actions, minimal damage was caused to the monument and other objects, and they were not injured.
“The content of the drawings and inscriptions in the context of socio-political events and public discussions that took place in the country (a series of public protests against the so-called “deep integration” of Russia and Belarus) at the end of 2019 indicate that Shavrov’s motive in their The application was an expression of opinion on these socially significant topics,” the human rights activists said in a statement.
In April, law enforcement officers, through the main state newspaper Sovetskaya Belarus, first leaked video recordings of Shavrov’s interrogations, and then materials from wiretapping his telephone conversations before the incident with the monuments (it was already under operational development).
During interrogations, the young activist told how the leaders of the Belarusian opposition extract money from the West, and then deceive each other when dividing it up. In his opinion, if the authorities had offered money, they would have taken it too.
Shavrov also spoke about the preparation of the Belarusian Maidan.
“We are ready to bring up to 5 thousand radicals to the square who are ready to fight the police. More precisely, 50 ideological people. The rest will come, say, to a rock concert. They can even wave a little, but, in essence, they are not fighters. - As Gene Sharp teaches us? You should always talk about non-violent actions, but in fact carry out violence. The demonstrators are holding the perimeter, and if you haven’t dispersed them in two hours, then sooner or later someone there... will bring their grandfathers a Schmeiser,” said Shavrov.
He was ready to hand over to the authorities the addresses of the oppositionists, which he advised to conduct searches, and was generally ready to cooperate.
In telephone conversations with like-minded people, he urged them to use Molotov cocktails at almost every rally. Shavrov proposed paying special attention to objects associated with Russia.
“The greater the threat to the Russian embassy, the better it will be for the Belarusian movement. Well, whatever it sounds like. Because the Russians will leave Belarus only if we burn down their embassy. As soon as their embassy starts burning... Well, the cars are there, the windows are broken... They will leave here forever.
The best target for attacking Russia is the House of Moscow in Minsk. It has the best location, and most importantly, it does not have diplomatic status. That is, if you fire at the House of Moscow, then you do not fall under the article,” Sovetskaya Belarus quotes Shavrov as saying.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.