Blogger Piatrukhin Released

He has been released from the detention center with two subpoenas on hand – to the court and to the police.

After yet another detention on November 13, Brest blogger and activist Siarhei Piatrukhin spent the night in the temporary detention facility of the Leninski district police department.

Today, Piatrukhin’s allies expected that he would be delivered to the court, but instead he was handed two subpoenas – to the court and to the police, and released, Radio Liberty reports.

“At the time of detention, the policemen accused me of having failed to appear in the police department over a subpoena on Sunday, November 4. However, I verbally agreed with the district police officer who summoned me that, in case I couldn’t make it, I would inform them beforehand. So I did – I told them my reasonable excuses of why I couldn’t come, and added I could come any other day except weekends. Actually, I think this is a scorn to summon a person on the weekend,” Siarhei Piatrukhin says.

The police drew up a protocol on the blogger’s failure to appear in the police department, and handed him a new subpoena obliging the blogger to come to the court on November 16.

“They put me in the detention facility yesterday, like, to prevent me from going on the run before trial. The trial should have taken place today. However, they gave me a subpoena for Friday and just let me go,” Piatrukhin expresses surprise with such turn of events.

Apart from this, the activist also received a subpoena obliging him to appear at the police department next Sunday, on November 18, exactly at the time when the opponents of the battery plant construction ususally gather in the city square.

Important to note, bloggers Siarhei Piatrukhin and Aliaksandr Kabanau have been covering the events related to the construction of the battery plant in Brest since the beginning of this year. They were repeatedly tried, detained and fined.

According to Piatrukhin, he has been fined for over 3 500 euros in total.