The headline says it all: after the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko passed a law making it illegal to clap (because dissidents began using applause as a form of protest), his cops began rounding up and arresting people who applauded, or stood near people who were applauding, or thought about applauding…
Anyway, once it became clear that clapping was dissent, clappers were rounded up. And like all thuggish regimes this one was not too particular about who it arrested. That included Konstantin Kaplin, who said he was convicted of "applauding in public" despite fairly conclusive evidence of innocence: he's only got one arm. "The judge read out the charges [and] the police affirmed that I was applauding," said the one-armed man. "The judge looked ashamed of herself," he said, but imposed the fine anyway.
A journalist was also quoted as saying that a deaf-mute had been charged with "shouting antigovernment slogans," but there was no independent confirmation of that.
One-Armed Man Arrested for Clapping [Lowering the Bar]
(Image: APPLAUSE, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from princesstheater's photostream)
