Chronicle of human rights violations in the sphere of culture (15-31 May 2023)

The trial of Eduard Babaryka, the cultural manager and head of Ulej and MolaMola crowdfunding platforms, began in Minsk.

Professor, Doctor of Sociology Jury Bubnoū was sentenced to two years in a penal colony over his article on sociology in a scientific journal.

Cultural manager Uladzimir Bulaūski received two years of imprisonment.

The Supreme Court rejected an appeal from journalist, essayist and poet Andrej (Andrzej) Pačobut (Poczobut) and upheld the sentence of eight years in prison against him.

Jaūhien Mierkis, a historian, journalist, local history expert, and populariser of Belarusian culture and history, was sentenced to four years in a medium-security prison.

Jana Cehla, a writer, author of fairy tales and journalist, was sentenced to two years of restricted freedom in home confinement.

Detained: linguist Aliena Anisim; singer Patrycyja Svicina; brothers Dzianis and Dzmitry Pietuch and guitar player Aliaksiej from the FaceOFF band, sociologist Andrej Bachanaū; architect Halina Zacharkina; historian Siarhiej Hlazyryn; literary expert Aliena Chramcova; historian Viktar Čaraūko.

The book ‘A History of Poland from the Ancient Times to the Present Day’ and the collection ‘Polskie pieśni patriotyczne‘ (Polish Patriotic Songs) were designated as “extremist materials.”

Cultural figures have their correspondence blocked by prison administrations.

I. Politically motivated criminal cases against cultural workers, authors and performers

1. On 22 May, Minsk Regional Court began the trial of the cultural manager, head of the Ulej and MolaMola crowdfunding platforms Eduard Babaryka, on charges under Article 130 of the Criminal Code (inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord), Art. 235 (2) of the Criminal Code (legalization of proceeds from crime), Art. 243 of the Criminal Code (tax evasion), Art. 293 (1) of the Criminal Code (organization of riots). Eduard Babaryka was arrested on 18 June 2020 together with his father, Viktar Babaryka, a presidential hopeful, when they went to the Central Election Commission to file the signatures collected for the nomination of Viktar Babaryka as a candidate for the presidency. Financial Investigations Department (FID) agents of the State Control Committee carried out the detention. Lawyers were not allowed to visit the detainees all day under the pretext that “drills were in progress” in the FID On the same day, Eduard Babaryka was placed in the KGB pre-trial detention centre.
2. On 26 May, Mahilioū’s Kastryčnicki District Court sentenced Jury Bubnoū, professor, doctor of sociology, and former head of the humanities faculty at the Belarusian University of Food and Chemical Technologies, to two years in prison. Jury Bubnoū was detained on 12 January 2023 at his workplace. On 21 January, he faced charges under Art. 367 of the Criminal Code (libelling the President in connection with his article on the 2020 protests in Belarus in the Youth Galaxy scientific almanack. In the article “Prerequisites of the Belarusian protest in 2020”, Jury Bubnoū wrote that what united the protesting Belarusians in 2020 was not “some puppeteer or charismatic revolutionary but Aliaksandr Lukašenka.” “I was fulfilling my professional duty as a sociologist. Sociology is often associated with a mirror. And the mirror must reflect the objective reality and not distort it,” Jury Bubnoū said to the court in his last words.
3. On 26 May, the Supreme Court rejected in a closed-door session the appeal from journalist, essayist and poet Andrej (Andrzej) Pačobut against his sentence. The judge ruled to uphold the verdict. In the motion, Pačobut’s lawyer demanded a review of the 8 February 2023 Hrodna Regional Court’s ruling, which sentenced Andrej to eight years in a penal colony under Art. 130 (3) of the Criminal Code (inciting racial, national, religious or other social enmity or discord), Art. 361 (3) of the Criminal Code (calls for sanctions to harm national security). The persecution of Andrej Pačobut is an element of pressure the authorities exert on the Polish minority in Belarus.
4. On 26 May, Pieršamajski District Court of Viciebsk sentenced cultural manager Uladzimir Bulaūski to two years in a minimum-security prison under Art. 342.2 of the Criminal Code (repeatedly violating the order of organizing or holding mass events).
5. On 30 May, the Homiel Regional Court found Jaūhien Mierkis guilty under Art. 361.1(3) of the Criminal Code (creation of an extremist formation or participation in it), and under Art. 361.4 (1) (2) of the Criminal Code (facilitating extremist activities) and sentenced him to four years in a medium-security prison. Jaūhien Mierkis, a historian, journalist, local history expert, and populariser of Belarusian culture and history, was detained in Homiel on 13 September 2022. Police searched his and his father’s houses and seized the equipment.
6. On 30 May in Homiel, the criminal case of Larysa Ščyrakova, the documentary film director, populariser of history and ethnography, performer of folk songs, reconstructor of folk rites, coordinator of the project to honour the memory of the repressed “Killed and Forgotten”, performer of the role of the repressed and executed Belarusian political figure Paluta Badunova in Valer Mazinski’s film “Paluta Badunova: To Recall and Not Forget, was transferred to the court. Larysa Ščyrakova was detained on 6 December 2022 in Homiel. Authorities placed her 16-year-old son Sviataslaū in a youth care home in the Homiel district. Larysa Ščyrakova faces charges under Art. 369.1 of the Criminal Code (discrediting the Republic of Belarus). Her ex-husband was able to take her son from the youth care.
7. On 31 May, the criminal case of Paval Mažejka was transferred to the court, according to the information his relatives received from the investigator. Paval Mažejka is the head of the cultural space “Urban Life Centre” in Hrodna, journalist, and coordinator of the publishing initiative “Hrodna Library”, specializing in publishing books by authors from Hrodna and about Hrodna. He was detained and taken to a pre-trial detention centre in Hrodna on 30 August 2022.
8. On 30 May, Minsk’s Central District Court sentenced Jana Cehla to two years of restricted freedom in home confinement under Article 342 (1) of the Criminal Code (organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order or active participation in them). A writer and author of fairy tales, Jana Cehla also worked as a journalist in the Literatura i Mastactva (Literature and Art) newspaper. She founded Masquerade, a magazine on young Belarusian art. Jana was detained in Minsk on 6 April 2023 and kept in custody until the trial.

II. Politically motivated administrative detentions and arrests of cultural workers, authors and performers

1. On 17 May, Aliena Anisim, a linguist, political and public figure, and the former chairwoman of the Belarusian Language Society liquidated by the authorities, was arrested at her workplace at the Institute of Linguistics of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
2. On 18 May, singer Patrycyja Svicina, who had refused Lukashenka’s scholarship in 2020, was detained in Minsk. The video shot by security agencies shows the young woman saying she won a scholarship to support talented youth. She also says that she “participated in protests”, “came out on the roads”, and “blocked traffic” in a column of demonstrators in 2020.
3. On 22 May, the members of the FaceOFF band – brothers Dzianis and Dzmitry Pietuch – were detained. Each of them received 15 days of administrative arrest. On 23 May, the band’s guitarist, Aliaksiej, was also detained and sentenced to 13 days in jail.
4. On 23 May in Polack, a lecturer at Polack State University, historian, researcher of the history of the 1863 uprising in Belarus, and associate professor of the Department of Constitutional Law and Public Administration, Siarhiej Hlazyryn, was detained and sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest.
5. On 23 May in Polack, Aliena Chramcova, a lecturer at the Department of World Literature and Foreign Languages of Polack State University, was detained and sentenced to 10 days of administrative arrest.
6. On 23 May, archaeologist, historian, and associate professor of the Department of History and Tourism at Polack State University Viktar Čaraūko was detained and sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest.
7. On 24 May, Andrej Bachanaū, MSc in Sociology, a researcher at the Department of Social Theory and Methodology, was detained at the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in Minsk. In 2020, he was among the scientists who signed an open letter against repression during the politically motivated layoffs within the Academy of Sciences.
8. On 24 May, Halina Zacharkina, associate professor, PhD and the former head of the architecture department at Polack State University, was detained in Navapolack. A local court found her guilty of unauthorized picketing and distribution of “extremist materials” and sentenced her to a fine of 80 base amounts – 2,960 BYN ($1,173).

III. Trials and arrests for using Belarusian and Ukrainian national symbols

1. 8 people were detained in Lida, Hrodna Region. In a video circulated through pro-government Telegram channels, detainees burnt a white-red-white flag under duress. The police filed reports against the detainees under Art. 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offences. It deals with the dissemination of informational products containing calls to extremist activities. Two persons faced criminal cases for participating in the 2020 post-election protests.
2. On 28 May, searches and arrests occurred in Hlybokaje, Viciebsk Region, over a white-red-white flag found in Lake Kahalnaje.

IV. Conditions in places of detention, tortures of prisoners

Prison administrations deliberately block the correspondence of imprisoned cultural figures. This way, they exert moral and psychological pressure on them, trying to prove that “everyone has forgotten them.”

V. Repressions in the book and publishing sector

1. On 25 May, a court in Baranavičy ruled to add the book ‘A History of Poland from the Ancient Times to the Present Day’, published in Polish and Russian in 1995, and the collection ‘Polskie pieśni patriotyczne‘ (Polish Patriotic Songs) published in Warsaw in 2007, to the so-called list of extremist materials.
2. Independent publisher Zmicier Kolas was ordered to cover the expenses incurred by the Information Ministry when liquidating his publishing house. After the Information Ministry’s motion, Minsk City Economic Court annulled the entrepreneur’s registration certificate and ordered him to pay almost 800 BYN ($317) in court fees.

VI. State vandalism of memorial sites that are significant for Belarusian culture

In Kurapaty, the site of mass executions by Stalin’s secret police in the late 1930s, forestry workers cut down trees and irreversibly destroyed crosses erected at the site of mass burials. Acts of vandalism in Kurapaty have been taking place with the authorities’ permission since the mid-1990s.