The Mahiliou coordinator of the “For Fair Elections” campaign is dissatisfied wit the verdict of the judge Ratnikava of the Mahiliou Leninski District Court of 11 September 2012 and the verdict of the judge Kachalava of 18 November 2012.

This time he filed a review appeal to the head of the Mahiliou Region Court, asking to abolish the fine of 4 million rubles, to which he had been sentenced for the alleged distribution of printed matter without imprint, and also to drop the administrative charges against him because of the absence of corpus delicti.

Moreover, Mr. Novikau asks to be returned the confiscated informational production and issue private admonitions to the aforementioned judges and police officers for the committed law violations.

Bear in mind that on 23 August Novikau's car was stopped by the road police. According to them, the car was out of order, as a result of which the driver was proposed to drive to the Leninski District Police Department of Mahiliou. There the car was examined by some policemen, who found 293 manuals and 293 notebooks for election observers, as well as 905 copies of the bulletin “For Fair Elections” in the truck.

According to the court verdict, all these materials were to be destroyed.

According to the human rights defender Barys Bukhel,the manuals and the notebooks cannot be considered as periodicals. “In fact, the local authorities tried to make everything possible in order to disrupt the election observation, that's where the unlawful actions of the judges and the police stem from,” summed up Mr. Bukhel.

Yury Novikau intends to appeal the court verdicts at the Supreme Court and the UN Human Rights Committee in case his appeal is not granted by the head of the Mahiliou Region Court.