{"id":258,"date":"2010-06-01T03:59:47","date_gmt":"2010-06-01T00:59:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/news\/2010\/06\/01\/conscientious-objector-acquitted-in-belarus-2\/"},"modified":"2022-01-11T21:07:23","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T18:07:23","slug":"conscientious-objector-acquitted-in-belarus-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/conscientious-objector-acquitted-in-belarus-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Conscientious Objector Acquitted In Belarus"},"content":{"rendered":"
The central court in the Belarusian city of Homel has acquitted a Jehovah’s Witness who had been charged with avoiding mandatory military service, RFE\/RL’s Belarus Service reports.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Dzmitry Smyk said that his belief did not allow him to bear arms. Judge Alena Tsalkova ruled that “Smyk’s actions do not constitute a crime.”<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Smyk told RFE\/RL after he left the courtroom a free man that he felt happy that justice had prevailed.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The Homel prosecutor has 10 days in which to file a motion against the court’s decision.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Viktar Adzinochanka, who is a lecturer at Skaryna Religious University and a representative of the Christian Association in Belarus, told RFE\/RL that the Belarusian authorities recently adopted a more realistic attitude toward Jehovah’s Witnesses.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In Belarus, every male between the age of 18 and 27 has to serve in the army for two years.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Dzmitry Smyk after his acquittal<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The central court in the Belarusian city of Homel has acquitted a Jehovah’s Witness who had been charged with avoiding mandatory military service, RFE\/RL’s Belarus Service reports. Dzmitry Smyk said that his belief did not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-belarus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6001,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/6001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}