The open type of the sentence serving regime allowed him to leave the correctional facility to work on the assignment of the administration of the correctional facility. He was charged with refusal to accept four assigned vacancies, as Yury Rubtsou considered the remuneration low. Human rights defender want to remind everyone, that Mr. Rubtsou was originally prosecuted for a T-shirt with the inscription “Lukashenko, go away”.

Representative of the prosecution Zaitsau said in his speech that Rubtsou refused to be employed in the jobs offered by the prison administration, for which he received several reprimands and an official warning about criminal responsibility.

Rubtsou noted that the prisoners received lower salaries as compared to ordinary citizens. At the same time, the Homel activist said that he was threatened with imprisonment if he did not sign a labor contract. However, he said, the signing of the employment contract is contrary to the Labor Code of Belarus.

The court questioned more than 15 witnesses, both from the administration of the correctional facility №7 and convicts serving their sentence there.

Head of open-type facility No. 7 Lieutenant Colonel Yury Makayeu said that Rubtsou categorically refused to work. Rubtsou refused to sign the order on employment, citing low payment, and refusing to sign any documents. Testimonies by the rest of the prison staff concerned specific cases when Rubtsou refused job offers.

Most prisoners who appeared at the court as witnesses said that Rubtsou did not categorically refuse to work, but only sought a decent wage, as he referred to a statement of the President who promised an average salary of $ 600.

Yury Rubtsou’s lawyer emphasized the fact that the defendant did not categorically object to employment, passed a medical examination after receiving a job assignment. but when signing the document drew attention to the blank fields in the employment contract, particularly in the fields with the information on the bonuses. Therefore, the defender considers that the contract was improperly drafted.

The lawyer also asked the court to examine decisions of a number of international human rights organizations, which recognized Yury Rubtsou a political prisoner and asked to voice the statements in court. The prosecutor opposed because “Rubtsou was accused of a crime against justice”.

Yury Rubtsou made his last statement. He said that he was working officially since he was 16 years old, and not officially – since 12. Not once did he get the document with the assignment, he was just taken and brought to some kind of enterprise. Rubstsou stated, that inmates of open-type correctional facilities are forced to sign employment agreements in order to show that there is no forced labor in Belarus. And in fact, there is forced labor, which is contrary to the Constitution.

The political prisoner said that he considered himself not guilty, and that had always lived according to the law.

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On 28 April, 2014 in the court of the Minsk’s Savetski district considered the administrative case of Yury Rubtsou, who was detained during the “Chernobyl Way”, a peaceful rally, authorized by the government. During the process, Rubtsou, who was brought to the court half-naked and without glasses, lodged the comments on the minutes of the hearing, which was conducted by a judge of the Minsk’s Savetski district Kiryl Palulekh, but the court did not take them into account. Moreover, Kiryl Palulekh found the words of Rubtsou for insulting and sued him.

On 5 August Yuri Rubtsou was summoned to the Savetski district department of the Investigative Committee of Minsk, as a suspect in a criminal case under Article 391 “Insult of a judge”.” The basis of the charges was the statement of the judge of the Minsk’s Savetski district court Kiryl Palulekh, who claimed that during the consideration of the administrative case on 28 April, Yury Rubtsou allegedly insulted the judge using offensive words.

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