A political prisoner, blogger Nikolai Klimovich died in the Vitebsk colony, who was sentenced to a year in prison for using a “smiley face” in social networks for a caricature of the self-proclaimed President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko.
Source: Belarusian Human Rights Center “Vesna“
Details: According to human rights activists, 61-year-old Klimovich died in the Vitebsk colony No. 3.
On February 28, in the court of the Pinsk district and the city of Pinsk, he was sentenced to a year in prison for reacting to a caricature of Lukashenka in Odnoklassniki, despite the fact that Klimovich had a group II heart disability, suffered a stroke and a complex heart operation.
The court accused Klimovich of insulting Lukashenka under Art. 368 of the Criminal Code in a satirical image that he allegedly posted on the social network. In Odnoklassniki, the blogger set the reaction as “funny”, so the cartoon was posted in the feed of his page. According to Klimovich, he did not intend to distribute these cartoons, but simply laughed at them.
The man was detained in the courtroom, because he was at large before the verdict was passed. Before the verdict, the blogger said that he could die behind bars.
On April 21, the Brest Regional Court upheld the verdict. Soon, Nikolai was transferred to the Vitebsk colony No. 3 – he was taken all over Belarus. He spent about two weeks in the colony.
2023-05-07 18:57:48
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