The regime of Belarus continues its policy of locking up young people in the country and does not even try to hide the aim of it: it is done in order to place as many young men under arms as possible. The aim hard to achieve in the current difficult demographic situation in the country and constant migration of young people overseas.

The other day, the Belarusian Prosecutor’s Office spoke about a very remarkable case, which can be a perfect illustration of the saying “Every law has a loophole, it depends what lawyer is looking at it”. The situation is as follows. In Brest region, a criminal case was launched against a young man from Kamenetsky district for evading activities on draft to the military service. The young man is a student of the Faculty of Economy of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences.

That is, the young man went to study from Belarus to Poland. However, some time later they attempted to conscript him anyway: a draft notice from a military registration and enlistment office arrived at his Belarusian address. The parents of the young man turned to the district court which examined the case and passed its verdict: the young man should be withdrawn from the military register in Belarus. The reason: he is a student of the Faculty of Economy of the Warsaw University of Life Sciences living at the students’ dormitory of the educational institution in Poland.

Nevertheless, the Belarusian state system did not want to let its victim go just like that. So, the press service of the Prosecutor’s Office describes further events in the following way: “The regional prosecutor’s office did not agree with the decision of the district court, because according to them, the court did not take into consideration all the facts that could be considered as evidence in the case”. In other words, according to the procuratorial officials, there was no evidence confirming that the young man’s was permanently resident in Poland.

In the result, the decision of the district court was overruled by the regional court. After that, investigators ordered another investigation after which they launched a new criminal case, this time under p. 1 art. 435 (evasion of activities on draft to the military service) of the Criminal Code of Belarus. Now, the prosecutor’s office is happy to report: we have identified a particularly dangerous criminal, threatening the national security of the country “an attempt to avoid activities on draft to the military service by means of going abroad from Belarus has been stopped”.

However, for now, there are too many questions and too few answers about the story. For instance, we do not know the name of the young man, and neither do we know whether the enforcers have managed to detain him in the territory of Belarus, or the guy is still in Warsaw and a free man. It means, the plot is expected to develop, and we are going to continue monitoring it.

Our House

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