One-armed Belarus Man Monocuffed for Clapping
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko’s police recently arrested a man for clapping at a street demonstration.
Konstantin Kaplin, an unemployed man from Grodno, was fined the equivalent of $200 for the offence, but knows he can’t have been guilty because he only has one arm. He says he was only watching the demonstration and trying to film it on his mobile phone when he was grabbed by plainclothes police.
Kaplin later regaled listeners with the tale: “The judge read out the charges, the police affirmed that I was applauding, and the fine was levied. The judge looked ashamed of herself, and I sympathise with her. She was probably under orders. But this is a huge sum for me to pay, more than twice my monthly pension, and I’m having to ask all my family and friends to help me raise it.”
Svetlana Kalinkina, editor of Minsk’s Narodnaya Volya newspaper, recalled that this sort of case is far from unprecedented: “There was one case where a deaf and mute person was accused of shouting anti-government slogans.”
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Other posts by LBU Editorial, Naomi Cudmore
July 26, 2011
Posted in: News
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