На русском языке:
Завершено расследование по делу Эдуарда Пальчиса
На беларускай мове:
Завершанае расследаванне па справе Эдуарда Пальчыса
The Investigative Committee of Belarus has completed the investigation of the criminal case against Eduard Palchys, the Belarusian blogger and public activist. He is charged under four articles of the Criminal Code. According to investigators, Palchys began criminal activity in 2016 and continued until his detention in September 2020. Human rights activists recognized Eduard as a political prisoner.
He’s charged under articles:
- Part 3 of Art. 130 (intentional actions aimed at inciting other social enmity and discord on the basis of another social affiliation, committed by a group of persons that entailed other serious consequences);
- Part 1 of Art. 293 (organization of mass riots);
- Part 1 of Art. 342 (organization of actions that grossly violate public order);
- Part 3 of Art. 361 (calls for actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of the Republic of Belarus).
What exactly, according to the investigation, the accused Eduard Palchys did?
Here is the full text from the website of the Investigative Committee:
«The main weapon of Palchys were the Internet resources created and managed by him, including a Telegram channel and pages on social networks, which captured most of the country’s audience, their trust and were used to control the consciousness of the crowd, inspire the «necessary» information, induce the planned criminal actions»,– the IC website says.
The information published since 2016 in the resources on its content was deliberately directed by Palchys to incite social enmity and discord on the basis of professional affiliation concerning law enforcement officers, civil servants, government officials and the public who actively advocate the observance of law and order and the preservation of the current state constitutional system of the Republic of Belarus.
Simultaneously with the «obfuscation» of the consciousness of citizens, Palchys was engaged in organizing mass riots and group actions that grossly violate public order. In addition to the information impact, the accused persuaded them to commit these crimes, posting information about the planned place and time of the planned illegal actions, information occasion, training and preparing potential participants.At the moment, irrefutable evidence has already been obtained indicating that E. Palchys committed actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of the Republic of Belarus. To realize his criminal goal, the defendant repeatedly created and distributed on the Internet materials aimed at destabilizing the situation in the country, artificially escalating tension and confrontation in society, in order to facilitate the subsequent seizure of state power in the Republic of Belarus by unconstitutional means by other persons.
As previously reported, during the investigation, a psycholinguistic examination of information posted in August-November 2020 as part of the Telegram channel created and managed by the accused was carried out. According to the expert’s conclusion, these materials contain signs of extremism and information aimed at inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord.
The criminal case of Eduard Palchys was transferred to the court. He has been in custody since September 2020. On April 20, his Telegram channel was declared to be extremist.