English

Thirty-two people ordered to pay compensation to customs, police over June`s border protest

A district judge on Hrodna on August 5 ordered 32 people involved in June`s spontaneous protest at the Bruzhi checkpoint at the Polish border to pay 4,277,334 rubels in damages to the city police department and 52,443 rubels to the Hrodna Regional Customhouse.

The hearing was held behind closed doors because the plaintiffs insisted that the case involved classified information.

There initially were a total of 35 defendants, but Judge Yuliya Shumskaya of the Leninski District Court dismissed suits against three of them.

The initial amount claimed by the police was about 11 million rubels.

Some 200 people blocked the Bruzhi crossing for several hours on June 12 to protest fresh travel restrictions. Clashes erupted as riot police were used to violently break up the protest. More than 20 people were arrested and 16 of them were subsequently fined. Fifteen of the protesters were found guilty of violating demonstration regulations and disobeying government officials and sentenced to fines between 2,450,000 rubels ($490) and 2,800,000 rubels ($560). One man was found guilty of disobeying government officials and fined 875,000 rubels ($175).

Two days before the protest, the Council of Ministers introduced customs duty on motor fuel exports by individuals crossing the Belarusian border into a country other than Russia more than once in five days. However, customs officers at the Polish border did not collect the duty but simply turned away drivers heading abroad for a second time in five days. //BelaPAN