As of 30 September 2024, at least 164 cultural figures, including not less than 37 People of Word, were behind bars.
A new term of one year and three months for political prisoner and prison literature author Zmicier Daškievič
Scriptwriter Kiryl Vieviel on criminal trial under Article 361 of the Criminal Code (calls for sanctions).
Homiel Regional Court opened the trial in absentia of human rights defender and history teacher Alena Masliukova.
Local history researcher and civic activist Paviel Laūrynovič and photo artist Ajvar Udrys were detained in Hlybokaje.
Prison literature author Ihar Alinievič, sentenced to 20 years in prison, was placed in punitive confinement.
The page dedicated to poetess, political activist, and GULAG prisoner Larysa Henijuš disappeared from the website of the National Academy of Science’s Jakub Kolas Central Scientific Library.
The Kalia Kultury (Around Culture) YouTube channel was designated as “extremist material.”
The Belarusian-language books and George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 were burned in the penal colony No 15’s library in Mahilioū.
I. Criminal prosecution of cultural figures, authors, and performers
1. On 18 September, Minsk’s Pieršamajski District Court heard a new criminal case against the political prisoner and prison literature author Zmicier Daškievič. He was charged with allegedly disobeying the requirements of the penal colony’s administration under Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code (actions that grossly violate public order). The court sentenced him to an additional one year and three months in prison.
2. On 23 September, scriptwriter Kiryl Vieviel appeared in court in a criminal trial, charged under Article 361 of the Criminal Code (calls for sanctions). Kiryl was detained in January 2024.
3. On 30 September, human rights activist and history teacher Alena Masliukova’s trial started in absentia in the Homiel Regional Court behind closed doors under Part 1 and Part 2 of Article 361.4 of the Criminal Code (facilitating extremist activity). The special proceedings against her started on 23 May 2024. She last lived in Belarus in 2021.
II. Detentions of cultural figures
1. On 20 September, it became known that a local historian and civic activist, Paviel Laūrynovič, had been detained in Hlybokaje.
2. On 20 September, it became known that photographer Ajvar Udrys was detained in Hlybokaje. He was convicted under Part 1 of Article 24.23 of the Code of Administrative Offences for subscribing to independent information outlets.
3. On 24 September, Maksim Harelikaū, an artist of the brass band of the military unit headquartered in the village of Zaslonava, Lepiel District, was convicted for subscribing to independent information outlets under an article in the Code of Administrative Offences.
III. Conditions in places of incarceration
1. On 26 September, it became known that the health of writer, literary critic, and political scientist Aliaksandr Fiaduta had deteriorated in the penal colony. He is also subjected to psychological torture: the administration of the penal colony does not allow other prisoners to talk to him.
2. The author of the prison literature, Ihar Alinievič, sentenced to 20 years in prison, was placed in punitive confinement where he remained on a hunger strike between 13 June and 26 June. Ihar was hospitalised straight from the punitive confinement cell of the Žodzina prison. Ihar Alinievič was detained when crossing the Belarus border on 28 October 2020. He was charged under several criminal articles for allegedly setting fire to official cars, a traffic police building, and the building of the State Forensic Committee and sentenced to 20 years in a medium-security penal colony.
Ihar Alinievič is a writer, publicist, and activist of the anarchist movement. Written in prison, his book Going to Magadan was published in 2013. The same year, Ihar Alinievič became the first laureate of the Francišak Alachnovič Award, founded jointly by PEN Belarus and Radio Svaboda, for the best work written in prison.
IV. Censorship
1. On 19 September, the Kalia Kultury (Around Culture) YouTube channel, run by a former employee of the National Arts Museum, Mikita Monič, was designated as “extremist material.” Around Culture is a Belarusian channel about “how to enjoy cultural products, how and why to visit museums and theatres.”
2. The page dedicated to poetess, political activist, and Soviet Gulag prisoner Larysa Henijuš (1910-1983) disappeared from the website of the National Academy of Science’s Jakub Kolas Central Scientific Library. A symbol of anti-Soviet resistance, Larysa Henijuš refused to accept Soviet citizenship and lived all her life with her passport marked “without citizenship.”
V. Destruction of books
On 24 September, it became known that the Belarusian-language books and George Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984 were burned in the penal colony No 15 in Mahilioū on the administration’s orders.