On 30 January 2012, human rights defender Mr Aleg Volchak was sentenced to 4 days imprisonment for petty hooliganism. Aleg Volchak is head of human rights organisation Pravovaya pomoshch naseleniyu (Legal assistance to the population) closed down by the Belarusian authorities in 2003 but since registered in Ukraine.

Following the closure of the organisation in Belarus a complaint was lodged with the UN Human Rights Committee and is currently under consideration. Aleg Volchak has been recently working on defending political rights and has spoken out against the poor human rights record in Belarus.

On 30 January 2012, Tsantralny district court of Minsk found Aleg Volchak guilty of 'petty hooliganism' and sentenced him to four days imprisonment under Article 17.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences.

The prosecution's witness, deputy head of the police of Tsantralny district in Minsk, Mr Anton Shakhlay, stated that Aleg Volchak was using insulting language in a public place. He was arrested on 27 January 2012, at approximatively 3.35 pm, on Shevchenko boulevard in Minsk, after policeman checked his identification documents.

He was brought to Maskousky district police station where he was informed that he was facing the administrative charge of 'petty hooliganism'. The trial was scheduled for 30 January pending which Aleg Volchak was placed in a pre-trial detention facility on Akrestina street in Minsk.

After the trial, he was brought back to the same detention centre. It is reported that the conditions of detention in this facility are particularly harsh: there are no beds and detainees are forced to sleep on a wooden floor with no bedclothes, the temperature in the cells is very low and detainees have no access to tap water.

Front Line Defenders believes that this arrest for no apparent reason might be linked to the recent publication by Pravovaya pomoshch naseleniyu of a report on legal expertise in the criminal case of Mr Ales Bialiatski, chairman of Human Rights Centre 'Viasna'.

Front Line Defenders expresses concern that administrative convictions are used as a tool for silencing and intimidating human rights defenders in Belarus, and are often based on fabricated charges which rely solely on testimony of police officers.

More generally, Front Line Defenders is concerned by the systematic practice of pre-trial detention of those charged with administrative offences in Belarus, especially taking into consideration that often conditions in pre-trial detention facilities are very poor and do not meet the national standards.

Front Line Defenders believes that Aleg Volchak was convicted solely as a result of his human rights work and in particular his public criticism of human rights violations in Belarus.