After a wave of solidarity the journalist Anton Surapin was released under recognizance not to leave Belarus, and later all the charges against him were dropped. Then the guy decided to seek compensation for the month of imprisonment.
– According to the law, I have the right to compensation for the moral damage from the actions of the investigators. I decided to pursue the compensation as soon as the charges were dropped. However, the investigators obviously did not want this to happen. They intentionally did not provide me with the necessary documents. So last year, as soon as I came back from the army, we, together with the lawyer of the “Belarusian Association of Journalists” NGO have prepared a lawsuit. I demanded the compensation of 190 million rubles, but the representatives of the State petitioned the court to terminate the process, – said Anton Surapin.
Despite this, on 2 March, 2016 the court decided to pay the compensation of 8 million rubles (around 400$) to Anton Surapin.
– Both us, and the Ministry of Finance (the defendant in the case) have immediately filed a complaint against this decision to the Minsk City Court. It has finally became known that the Court upheld the ruling, and now the Ministry of Finance has to pay me the money. Generally, I am satisfied with the ruling – it is the first case in recent years, when a person, recognized as a political prisoner by the international community, has got the compensation.
“Now I have two options: to appeal to the Supreme Court to increase the sum of compensation, because 8 million rubles (400$) for a month of arrest and a year under recognizance is incomparable. Another option is to lodge an appeal to the General prosecutor’s office to make the KGB officially bring apologies for the story. Also, I thank BAJ and personally Aleh Aheyeu for the professional legal support,” Anton Surapin added.
In 2012, a journalist has spent more than a month in the KGB detention center on charges of “Swedish teddybear drop”. Then Anton Surapin was accused of the organization of illegal crossing of the state border by the Swedes, even though the journalist was just first to post the photos of the “teddybear airdrop” on his website. The KGB has officially announced the drop of the criminal charges against Anton Surapin in June 2012. The Surapin’s arrest has led the ten most absurd arrests in the ranking of the Amnesty International.
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