As of 15 August 2023, at least 126 cultural figures, including not less than 32 People of the Word, were behind bars.
Musician Paval Lapikaŭ from the Wonder Spak band was detained. He is facing charges of “financing extremist formations” BY_HELP, BYSOL and BYPOL.
Folk singer Patrycyja Svicina was sentenced to 2.5 years of home confinement.
Natallia Belaja, a craftswoman from Rečyca, was sentenced to 2.5 years.
The trial of Belarusian culture and history populariser Larysa Ščyrakova continues behind closed doors.
Researcher and editor Valeryja Kasciuhova was moved from a pre-trial detention facility to penal colony No 4 in Homiel.
Activist and distributor of Belarusian literature, Barys Chamajda, was arrested for 15 days over the “Pahonia” (Pursuit) emblem on his passport. The police refused to return the passport under the pretext that it was “damaged.”
Ihar Bahrycevič was detained for putting the image of the “Pursuit” coat of arms on a tank in the World of Tanks computer game.
In Hrodna, a plaque with an inscription in Belarusian, “To a resident of Hrodna, a Polish Army officer, shot in the Stalinist camps,” was removed from the monument at the cemetery
An inscription in Belarusian, “Innocent people were executed in this forest in the 1920s-30s,” from the monument to the victims of Stalin’s repressions has disappeared in Čaliuskincaŭ Park in Minsk.
I. Politically motivated criminal cases against cultural workers, authors and performers
1. Musician Paval Lapikaŭ from the Wonder Spak band was detained on 1 August in Mahilioŭ. He is accused of “financing extremist formations BY_HELP, BYSOL and BYPOL.”
2. Minsk’s Central District Court on 2 August sentenced folk singer Patrycyja Svicina to 2.5 years of home confinement under Article 342 of the Criminal Code (active participation in group actions that grossly violate public order). Patrycyja Svicina spent 2.5 months in the pre-trial detention centre No 1 on Valadarskaha Street in the Belarusian capital.
3. Homiel Regional Court on August 4 sentenced Natallia Belaja, a craftswoman from Rečyca, to 2.5 years in prison under Article 361.4 (1) of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (assisting to extremist activities) for sending a message on 8 August 2022 to the chatbot of the Realnaja Bielarus (Real Belarus) Telegram channel. Due to the time spent in pre-trial detention, Natallia Belaja has one year and three months left to serve her sentence.
4. The trial of Belarusian culture and history populariser Larysa Ščyrakova continues behind closed doors in a Homiel court. She is accused under Article 369.1 (discrediting the Republic of Belarus) and Article 361.4 of the Criminal Code (assisting in extremist activities). According to the investigation, Larysa Ščyrakova “took advantage of the tense situation in the society and tried to destabilise the situation in the country, presented for posting and placed on the Internet, including on destructive websites, information materials with deliberately false data that discredited the Republic of Belarus”, “carried out the collection, creation, processing, storage and transfer of information for “Viasna” and “Belsat”. Larysa Ščyrakova is a 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. 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. Her ex-husband was able to take her son from the youth care. When Larysa was in custody, her mother died.
5. It became known on 10 August that Valeryja Kasciuhova was moved from a temporary holding facility to the female penal colony No 4 in Homiel. Valeryja Kasciuhova is the founder and editor of the expert community website “Our Opinion”, the editor and author of the annual collection of analytical reviews of the situation in Belarus “Belorusskiy ezhegodnik”, the head of the expert monitoring group “Belarus in Focus”. Valeryja was detained on 30 June 2021 after a search of her apartment and placed in a pre-trial detention centre on Valadarskaha Street in Minsk. The Minsk City Court began hearing the criminal case of Valeryja Kasciuhova and fellow researcher Tacciana Kuzina on 6 February 2023. Valeryja was charged under Article 361 (3) of the Criminal Code (calls for actions aimed at harming the national security of the Republic of Belarus), Article 357 (1) of the Criminal Code (conspiracy to seize power by unconstitutional means), and Article 130 (3) of the Criminal Code (inciting social hatred or discord). On 17 March 2023, Minsk City Court sentenced researchers Valeryja Kasciuhova and Tacciana Kuzina to 10 years in a minimum-security penal colony.
II. Politically motivated administrative detentions and arrests of cultural workers, authors and performers
On 7 August in Mahilioŭ, police detained blacksmith Dzmitry Cumaraŭ and an English language teacher from Secondary School No. 43 Julia Paplaŭskaja.
III. Trials and arrests for using Belarusian and Ukrainian national symbols
1. On 1 August, the Vierchniadzvinsk District Court found an activist and distributor of Belarusian literature, Barys Сhamajda, guilty under Article 24.23 (1) in the Code of Administrative Offences (violating the procedures to organise and hold a mass event). It sentenced him to 15 days of arrest. Barys Chamajda was detained on 28 July at the Bihosava railway station in the Vierchniadzvinsk district of the Viciebsk region. He was travelling from Viciebsk to join a pilgrimage to the village of Rosica near the Latvian border. Rosica hosted the commemoration of the martyrs of the Second World War, the Marian priests Jury Kašyra and Antoni Liaščevič. Barys Chamajda was detained after the border guards checked the passports and noticed the Pahonia (Pursuit) coat of arms on the passport’s cover during ID checks. When Barys Chamajda got off the train onto the platform, police officers detained and transported him to Verchniadzvinsk. The police officers wrote in the offence report that Barys Chamajda had deliberately put the Pahonia sticker. If a border guard spotted it, other people could see it too. Hence, he held an unauthorised picket. The officers refused to return the passport to the owner under the pretext that it was damaged and required replacement.
2. On 8 August, police in Homiel detained a woman on a motorcycle over the white-red-white colour of her helmet.
3. Ihar Bahrycevič for putting the image of the “Pursuit” coat of arms on a tank in the World of Tanks computer game.
4. It became known on 9 August that Hlybokaje District Court on 25 July issued a verdict in the case of former Volnaje Hlybokaje newspaper employee Nadzieja Malinoŭskaja under two articles in the Code of Administrative Offences (19.11 part 2 and 24.23 part 1) for sharing Belsat TV’s content on the newspaper’s Instagram account and for publishing the images of Pahonia (Pursuit) coat of arms, white-red-white flag and “Viva Belarus!” slogan on the newspaper’s VKontakte account. Apart from the 4440 BYN (1174 USD) fine, the court ordered to confiscate Nadzieja Malinoŭskaja’s phone Samsung A41.
5. It became known on 19 August that in Navapolack, Polymir plant employee and long-distance runner Andrej Bierazoŭski was on 26 July sentenced to 13 days of arrest under Article 24.23 (1) in the Code of Administrative Offences for supporting Ukraine and holding a picket on social media. The court ruled that Andrej manifested socio-political, personal and other attitudes by publishing on his Facebook account photos of himself and an image with the “Glory to Ukraine” slogan on a blue and yellow background.
6. It became known on 10 August that Orša District Court on 27 July awarded an 1110 BYN (438 USD) fine to nurse Inha Tylčyk for “holding a picket on social media”. The court found that “between 14 November 2020 and 18 July 2023, Inha Tylčyk participated in a mass event by taking a photograph of herself in the background of a white-red-white flag in violation of picketing rules and with the aim of publicly expressing her socio-political attitudes.”
IV. Conditions in places of detention, tortures of prisoners
On 3 August, the imprisoned local historian Uladzimir Hundar called for the first time from the penal colony in Babrujsk and told his relatives that several prisoners with criminal records were threatening him. Uladzimir Hundar, 63, has a disability (he has only one leg). He was sentenced to 20 years in a medium-security colony in a politically motivated trial.
V. Destruction of memorials
1. It became known on 10 August that a plaque with an inscription in Belarusian, “To a resident of Hrodna, a Polish Army officer, shot in the Stalinist camps”, was removed from the monument at the cemetery in Hrodna.
2. It became known on 15 August that an inscription in Belarusian, “Innocent people were executed in this forest in the 1920s-30s”, had disappeared from the monument to the victims of Stalin’s repressions in Čaliuskincaŭ Park in Minsk. A wooden memorial in the form of a roadside chapel was erected in October 1990 on Dziady, a traditional day of remembering ancestors.