MINSK -- Four Belarusian activists are to go on trial for hooliganism next week after being arrested while marking Belarus's Soviet-era declaration of sovereignty, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports.
The young activists -- Mikalay Dzemidzenka, Kasiya Davydzik, Andrey Kim, and Vyachaslau Siuchyk -- were detained by police on July 27 while marking the 20th anniversary of Belarus's declaration of sovereignty.
The activists were laying flowers at monuments to Belarusian national poets, writers, and philosophers when police arrested them. They had planned to recite famous national poems before they were detained and taken to a police station.
Journalists and relatives of the detained activists were barred from the court hearing in Minsk on July 28.
The trial is set to start August 5.