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Judge in Minsk upholds fine against prominent human rights defender Valyantsin Stefanovich

A judge of the Partyzanski District Court in Minsk on Friday rejected an appeal by prominent human rights defender Valyantsin Stefanovich against a fine imposed on him by the district tax office.

Mr. Stefanovich, deputy chairman of an unregistered human rights organization called Vyasna, said after the hearing that he would file an appeal with the chairperson of the Minsk City Court.

On October 18, the tax office fined Mr. Stefanovich 4,750,000 rubels ($835 at the "official" exchange rate) for allegedly evading taxes.

The fine accounts for 15 percent of the income tax amount that he allegedly failed to pay. The tax office found that he had failed to make tax payments "by recklessness."

"Interestingly, I had known how they would punish me before the hearing of the case," Mr. Stefanovich earlier told BelaPAN. "Tax officers came to me and showed what they called a draft ruling. They not just showed the paper but also asked me to sign it to certify that I had read it. When I asked how it was possible to draft the ruling when the hearing had not yet been held…, they did not even blush."

Mr. Stefanovich condemned the incident as nonsense. He said that the hearing itself had also been marred by irregularities. Some documents attached to the file had not been translated into Russian or Belarusian, but the tax officers showed no embarrassment, saying that everything was clear to them without translation, he noted.
At the beginning of September, the Partyzanski district tax office sued Mr. Stefanovich to collect 31.5 million rubels ($7,185 at the "official" exchange rate) that he allegedly should have paid in income tax and six million rubels in penalties. He was ordered to pay the amounts after Belarusian authorities received information from Lithuania and Poland about his bank accounts in those countries. The Belarusian tax authorities announced that they viewed the money in the accounts as his personal income and accused him of concealing it. Mr. Stefanovich insisted that the money was not his income and therefore was not subject to tax. The money was donated by various foundations for financing Vyasna's activities and, in particular, for providing assistance to victims of politically motivated persecution, he said. //BelaPAN