Sergey Petrukhin

Affiliated media: The "People's Reporter" YouTube channel, Blogger

Incident date: April 14, 2021

Attack type:

• Court trial

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: BelaPAN

Location: Belarus, Mogilev

Additional information:

On 14 April, the Oktyabrsky Court of Mogilev sentenced bloggers Sergey Petrukhin and Alexander Kabanov to three years in prison. Both were found guilty of “organising group actions that grossly violate public order” (Article 342 of the Criminal Code) as well as “insulting a government official in connection with the performance of their official duties” (Article 369 of the Criminal Code). Petrukhin was also found guilty of insulting the judge of the Brest Regional Court, Andrei Leshchenko (Article 391 of the Criminal Code). The human rights centre "Viasna" reported that Petrukhin and Kabanov must also pay 750 rubles in compensation for “moral damage” to Mogilev riot police officer Vitaly Avtushenko, who was allegedly “humiliated” by the bloggers' social media posts.