As of 31 December 2025, at least 140 cultural figures, including 31 writers, were not free – either imprisoned or in home confinement.
Musician and translator Aleś Čumakoŭ was arrested in connection with the case against the cultural initiative Da Zoraŭ.
Kirył Kraŭcoŭ, founder of the art village Čyrvony Kastryčnik (Red October), was sentenced to four years in home confinement.
Volha Sitnik (username Homelka), a Wikipedia author and administrator, was sentenced to home confinement.
In a politically motivated case, Valancina Łohvin, a Candidate of Biological Sciences and former head of the Ukrainian Culture Centre Sich in Minsk, was convicted.
Pavieł Stankievič, head of the Borysthenes historical club, was again detained under an administrative charge.
Translator Siarhiej Paŭłavicki reported on a ban on the study and use of foreign languages in Penal Colony No. 15 in Mahiloŭ.
The Ministry of Information added 52 books to the list of publications that “may cause harm to the national interests of the Republic of Belarus”. The list includes the historical monograph by Dorota Michaluk, The Belarusian People’s Republic in 1918–1920: At the Origins of Belarusian Statehood.
The State Security Committee (KGB) designated the cultural initiative Da Zoraŭ as an “extremist formation”.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs designated the Mahiloŭ-based historical re-enactment (knightly) club Borysthenes as an “extremist formation”.
A court designated the Telegram channel PEN Belarus as “extremist materials”.
Authorities ordered the removal of works by photographer Valeryj Viadrenka from his album The Irreversible from an exhibition.
I. Criminal prosecution of cultural figures, authors, and performers
1. On 17 December, it became known that musician and translator Aleś Čumakoŭ had been arrested in connection with the case against the cultural initiative Da Zoraŭ, which the State Security Committee (KGB) has designated an “extremist formation”. Aleś Čumakoŭ is a member of the medieval music ensemble Stary Olsa. He plays the gusli, zhaleyka, and other traditional instruments. He has translated Irish heroic poetic works into Belarusian. He also performed the Belarusian version of the song Toss a Coin to Your Witcher, featured in the Belarusian-language dubbing of the Netflix series The Witcher. His translation of the song is titled Kiń dukat viedźmaru (Toss a Ducat to the Witcher).
2. On 22 December, the Homiel Regional Court handed down a verdict against Kirył Kraŭcoŭ, founder of the art village Čyrvony Kastryčnik (Red October), under Parts 1 and 2 of Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code (facilitating extremist activity). The charges were brought for providing information to the Telegram channel Belaruski Hajun, which documented the movement of Russian troops in Belarus. Kirył Kraŭcoŭ was sentenced to four years in home confinement. His arrest became known on 25 September 2025.
Kirył Kraŭcoŭ founded the art village Čyrvony Kastryčnik in the Rečyca District, where he established a pottery workshop and organised festivals and creative gatherings. He also took part in the action “With a Stool to the Ocean”, during which he travelled around much of the world by hitchhiking.
3. On 23 December 2025, it became known that Volha Sitnik (username Homelka), an author and administrator of the Belarusian-language Wikipedia, had been sentenced to home confinement. Volha Sitnik was born on 24 January 1983. Since 2009, she has written Wikipedia articles on the history and culture of Belarus, as well as on historical figures, architectural monuments, flora, and fauna. She is the author of several thousand articles and approximately 200,000 edits. She lives in Minsk and has three underage children. On 17 April 2025, Volha Sitnik was detained for the first time in a politically motivated case but was released. On 7 May, she was detained again and spent 10 days in the detention centre on Akrescina Street. She was not released afterwards and was transferred to a pre-trial detention facility in connection with a politically motivated criminal case. She was held in Detention Centre No. 1. In June 2025, the security services used one of Volha Sitnik’s Telegram accounts to disseminate information favourable to them in Belarusian diaspora chat groups. On 23 July 2025, human rights defenders recognised Volha Sitnik as a political prisoner. On 23 December 2025, it became known that she had been sentenced to home confinement.
4. On 31 December, it became known that the Minsk City Court, in a politically motivated case, convicted Valancina Łohvin, a Candidate of Biological Sciences and former head of the Ukrainian Culture Centre “Sich” in Minsk. She was sentenced under three articles of the Criminal Code: Part 1 of Article 130 (incitement of hatred and discord), Part 1 of Article 368 (insulting the President), and Parts 1 and 2 of Article 361-4 (facilitating extremist activity). The Ukrainian Culture Centre “Sich” in Minsk was liquidated in 2023. Valancina Łohvin was sentenced to home confinement.
II. Administrative persecution of cultural figures
On 16 December, it became known that Pavieł Stankievič, a historical re-enactor and head of the historical club Borysthenes, had been detained again under an administrative charge and placed in a temporary detention facility.
III. Conditions in places of incarceration
1. Translator Siarhiej Paŭłavicki reported a ban on the study and use of foreign languages in Penal Colony No. 15 in Mahiloŭ. He also stated that the prison administration had removed dictionaries from the colony library. Siarhiej Paŭłavicki, a German-language translator and editor, was detained on 9 August 2024. On 1 October 2025, the Minsk City Court sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment in a minimum-security penal colony under Part 1 of Article 361-2 of the Criminal Code (financing extremist activity) for making donations. On 27 December 2024, he was added to the “List of Citizens of Belarus, Foreign Nationals, and Stateless Persons Involved in Extremist Activity”. He served his sentence at Penal Colony No. 15. He was released on 13 December 2025 and forced into exile from Belarus.
2. Alaksandr Fiaduta, a political scientist and literary scholar, Candidate of Philological Sciences and Doctor of Humanities, and a former political prisoner, who was released on 13 December 2025 as part of a group of 123 people and forced from Belarus into exile, stated:
“I was assigned to unskilled labour. A doctor who had been habilitated at the Jagiellonian University was forced to wash the workshop floors. After I had almost lost the ability to move around the workshop, I was made to sort wires, like everyone else. I cleaned copper wires. Since I was forbidden to use a knife, I did it by hand. I lost 40 kilograms in weight.”
3. Ihar Alinievič, an author of prison literature and an activist in the anarchist movement, went on a month-long hunger strike in Penal Colony No. 20 in Mazyr. He was subsequently hospitalised in the prison hospital in Kaladzičy, where he was diagnosed with a stomach ulcer.
IV. Confiscation of manuscripts from released writers, former political prisoners
Political scientist and literary scholar Alaksandr Fiaduta reported that on 13 December, before his removal from the penal colony, prison authorities had confiscated his manuscripts. He noted that he was apparently deliberately prevented from packing his belongings himself and was told that his possessions had been loaded separately, with the manuscripts among them. One of the confiscated manuscripts was a film screenplay about the relationship between the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov and Joseph Stalin.
V. Book bans
On 29 December, the Ministry of Information added 52 books to the list of publications that “may cause harm to the national interests of the Republic of Belarus”. The list includes the historical monograph The Belarusian People’s Republic in 1918–1920: At the Origins of Belarusian Statehood by Polish researcher Dorota Michaluk.
The Ministry of Information also banned two novels by Vladimir Sorokin, written in the mid-2000s — Day of the Oprichnik and Sugar Kremlin; three books by Bayan Shyranov about the lives of people with drug addiction — Low-Level Aerobatics, Mid-Level Aerobatics, and High-Level Aerobatics; three books by Colin Butts about Ibiza (including Ibiza Is a Verb); Junkie by William S. Burroughs; Roots of the Grass by Mike Telwel; a collection of essays on the life and worldview of Timothy Leary; a work of fiction about Jim Morrison’s journey through the world of the dead; and Our Neighbours on the Planet: Stories about Wild Animals by Bouvijn Jansen and Lotte Stegmann. The complete list of banned books is available at: https://bannedbooks.penbelarus.org/harmful_list
VI. Designation of cultural organisations as “extremist formations”
1. On 17 December, the State Security Committee (KGB) designated the initiative Da Zoraŭ as an “extremist formation”. According to human rights defenders, detentions in connection with the Da Zoraŭ case took place in late November.
2. On 17 December, the Ministry of Internal Affairs designated the Mahiloŭ-based medieval knights’ club Borysthenes as an “extremist formation”. Founded in the late 1990s, the club is part of the Mahiloŭ City Centre for Culture and Leisure. For decades, performances by the club’s members had featured at major public celebrations and events in Mahiloŭ and the surrounding region.
VII. Designation of cultural organisations’ social media as “extremist materials”
On 20 December, the Liozna District Court of the Viciebsk Region designated the Telegram channel PEN Belarus as “extremist materials”.
VIII. Censorship
On 18 December, authorities ordered the removal of works by photographer Valeryj Viadrenka from an exhibition organised by the Minsk club at the University of Culture Art Gallery. The removed works from the album The Irreversible depicted neglected architectural heritage sites in Belarus.