As of 30 November 2023, at least 146 cultural figures, including not less than 32 People of the Word, were behind bars.
The Supreme Court of Belarus upheld the verdict of eight years in a medium-security penal colony for cultural manager Eduard Babaryka.
Tour guide Yury Krasoŭski was arrested for 15 days.
Sviatlana Jaskievič, Master of Pedagogical Sciences, was detained for “posting protest symbols on social media.”
The director of the Elitsoft IT company, Yury Bal, was detained for using the white-red-white national symbols.
Correspondence and parcels remain restricted for the imprisoned writer, human rights defender, and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aleś Bialiacki.
Imprisoned activist and author of prison literature, Ihar Alinievič is deprived of food parcels, meetings with relatives, and phone calls.
Public figure and author of prison literature Aliaksandr Franckievič, is kept in solitary confinement.
Blogger, non-fiction internet author, and civic activist Paval Vinahradaŭ was held for six months in punitive confinement at the penal colony No. 11 in Vaŭkavysk.
Repressions are on the rise against the families of cultural figures who had to leave Belarus over politically motivated.
I. Politically motivated criminal cases against cultural workers, authors and performers
1. On 22 November, the Supreme Court considered the appeals of video cameraman Viačaslaŭ Lazaraŭ and his wife, Russian language teacher and mother of three children, Tacciana Pyćko. The Supreme Court reduced the initial charges and released a new sentence under Art. 361.1 (3) of the Criminal Code (participation in an extremist formation). Viačaslaŭ Lazaraŭ will serve five years in a minimum-security penal colony instead of 5.5 years. Tacciana Pyćko, sentenced by the regional court under Art. 361.4 (1) of the Criminal Code (facilitating extremist activities) received three years in prison with a three-year suspension under the Supreme Court’s ruling. As a result of the appeal, Tacciana Pyćko was released from custody.
2. On 27 November, the Supreme Court of Belarus upheld the verdict for cultural manager Eduard Babaryka – eight years in a medium-security penal colony.
II. Politically motivated administrative detentions and arrests of cultural workers, authors and performers
1. On 30 November, it became known that Vasil Paliakoŭ walked out free from a detention centre in Homiel. Detained on 1 November, he stood trial on 3 November and was sentenced under Art. 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offences (disseminating extremist materials) to 15 days of administrative arrest. On 11 November, Homiel’s Saviecki District Court again found him guilty of “disseminating extremist materials.” A former history teacher, Vasil Paliakoŭ, was fired for political reasons.
2. On 15 November, tour guide Yury Krasoŭski was detained in his home in Kareličy. A local court ruled to arrest Yury for 15 days under Art. 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offences (distribution, production, storage, and transportation of information products that contain calls to extremist activities or promote such activities).
III. Trials and arrests for using Belarusian and Ukrainian national symbols
1. On 22 November, the Master of Pedagogical Sciences Sviatlana Jaskievič was detained in Minsk for “posting protest symbols on social media, discussing in courtyard chats the possibility of participating in unauthorised events.”
2. On 26 November, a man was violently detained in Vaŭkavysk. He appeared in a police video saying that the reason for his detention was the national white-red-white symbols he had published on the Internet.
3. On 30 November, the director of the IT company Elitsoft, Yury Bal, was detained in Homiel for using the white-red-white national symbols.
IV. Conditions in places of detention, tortures of prisoners
1. On 15 November, it became known that the imprisoned activist and author of prison literature, Ihar Alinievič, is deprived of food parcels, meetings with relatives, and phone calls. The medical care package sent by his mother, Valiancina Alinievič, was also returned. In 2013, Ihar Alinievič received the main award for the best work written in prison to become the first laureate of the Francišak Aliachnovič literary award, founded by Pen Belarus and Radio Svaboda (Radio Liberty), for the book I’m Going to Magadan. On 22 December 2021, Ihar Alinievič was sentenced to 20 years.
2. Public figure and author of prison literature Aliaksandr Franckievič is held in solitary confinement (cell-type room) in colony No. 5 in Ivacevičy. On 6 September 2022, he was sentenced to 17 years in a maximum-security penal colony and a fine of 700 basic units (BYN22,400 or more than $8,800). It was the second time that Aliaksandr Franckievič was recognised as a political prisoner – the first time was in 2011. In 2013, he became the laureate of the Francišak Aliachnovič literary award for the short story Hug Me Tighter. The award, founded by Pen Belarus and Radio Svaboda (Radio Liberty), is given for the best work written in prison.
3. For six months, blogger, author, and civic activist Paval Vinahradaŭ was held in punitive confinement at penal colony No. 11 in Vaŭkavysk. His wife Sviatlana wrote on her Facebook page: “He spent the last almost six months out of seven in punitive confinement with short breaks. He has now received two months of cell-type room. His consciousness is clear. He is young, handsome, smart – this is what the prison spiders whispered to me. It’s a maximum-security prison. They don’t bake potatoes here; they bake people here.” On 16 March 2022, Paval Vinahradaŭ was sentenced to five years in prison.
4. Correspondence and parcels remain restricted for the imprisoned writer, human rights defender, 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aleś Bialiacki.
V. Repressions against cultural figures’ family members
On 30 November, the parental house of the researcher and populariser of Belarusian history and culture, Aliaksiej Trubkin, was searched in Navapolack. He left Belarus in 2006 over political persecution.
VI. Repressions against cultural figures who left Belarus
The property of the former owner of the Belarusian souvenir shop Cudoŭnaja Krama (Wonderful Shop), the editor of the Orša independent news portal Orsha.eu Ihar Kazmierčak, was distrained. He has not lived in Belarus since 2021.
VII. Censorship and self-censorship
On 26 November, the birthday of the classic of Belarusian literature Uladzimir Karatkievič, there was no poetry reading in Orša near the writer’s monument in the “Fairy Land” park. In the past, activists and fans of the writer’s work regularly organised such readings. Since 2020, many participants in previous readings have undergone repression for civic activism.
VIII. Repressions in the language field
On the roads of Belarus, the names of the cities written in Latin letters in Belarusian are removed from the signposts. The authorities perceive Belarusian Latin as an influence of Western culture and a danger to the current ideology, dominated by the ideas of the “Russian world.”