Safety first

Railways are a source of increased danger. Thousands of passengers use the trains of Belarusian Railways daily, and hundreds of wagons transport cargo.

At the same time, there has been an increase in calls for citizens to commit unlawful acts on railway transport facilities, including by short-circuiting rail circuits. When calling for unlawful acts, it is deliberately concealed that they can lead to: injury and death of people, serious damage to the environment, ecological disasters, the consequences of which will affect the health of the population, including future generations.

Please note! Interference by unauthorized persons in the operation of railway automation by short-circuiting a rail circuit using foreign objects can lead to emergency braking of rolling stock, which may be considered as intentional obstruction of transport communications.

Administrative liability is provided for the specified actions in the form of a fine of up to fifty basic units, as well as, depending on the consequences, criminal liability.

According to Art. 309 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus, intentional destruction, damage, or otherwise rendering unusable railway, water, air, road, main pipeline transport, communication routes, structures on them, signaling or communication equipment, or other transport equipment, if these actions could have caused death, shipwreck, accident, or other serious consequences, are punishable by a fine, or arrest, or restriction of liberty, or deprivation of liberty for up to three years. If the actions, through negligence, caused grievous bodily harm or less grievous bodily harm, or damage on a particularly large scale, deprivation of liberty for up to four years may be imposed.

Actions that negligently caused the death of a person are punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of three to ten years.

Assistant to the Vitebsk Transport Prosecutor, Class 1 Lawyer S.V. Sazonova