17-year-old teenager committed suicide in Minsk over protest case – human rights activists

On the evening of May 25, 17-year-old Dmitry Stakhovsky, a defendant in the criminal case on participation in the “mass riots” of August 9-11, 2020, committed suicide in Minsk. He left a suicide note on his page in the social network Vkontakte, according to the Belarusian human rights center Viasna.

According to their information, the teenager jumped from a 16-storey building.

Before that, he wrote a post in which he explains his act by criminal prosecution due to participation in rallies.

Human rights activists say that Stakhovsky was an orphan and lived in a hostel. It was the employees of this hostel who pointed to him as a participant in the protest actions, after which he became a defendant in the criminal case.

According to Vesna, on the afternoon of May 25, Stakhovsky was under interrogation.

“The Investigative Committee was to blame for this. It is no longer a secret that I had criminal article 293, part 2. If the moral pressure on me had not continued, I think I would not have dared to take such a terrible act as suicide. But my strength was running out. “, – he wrote on Vkontakte (there he, according to Vesna, is registered as Dima Merkulov).

• UN experts received information about 450 documented cases of torture and ill-treatment of people in Belarus when they were detained for participating in peaceful protests against the official results of the 2020 presidential elections. Also known about six missing persons.
• According to the educational and social public association Zvyano, during the protests in Belarus at least five people were killed and another seven were in critical condition in intensive care.