Andrej was detained on November 25, 2021. On November 26, the Zavodski District Court of Minsk had sentenced him to 10 days of administrative arrest, after which he was not released, as on December 5 he was arrested for another 10 days. The same happened on December 15 and on December 23, Andrej Ku\u017anie\u010dyk\u2019s relatives were informed that a criminal case had been opened against him, but it is not yet clear under which articles. Andrej was transferred to Pre-trial Detention Center No. 1 in Minsk.<\/p>\n
Before his arrest, Andrej Ku\u017anie\u010dyk told his friend Aramais Mirakyan why he had decided to stay in Belarus. And asked to publish the text in case he ended up behind bars:<\/p>\n
“My reasons for staying here:<\/p>\n
I have been living in Belarus since I was 13 years old, I entered the Faculty of Philology for her. I lived and worked knowing I would stay within her boundaries. Now I am over 40 but it is too late to start from scratch; the point is that I don’t want to deviate from the path of working in favor of Belarus;<\/p>\n
under the current conditions, it seems to me serving my sentence in prison will bring me less suffering than saying goodbye to my Motherland for an indefinite time (presumably until death), although I may be fatally mistaken about how far repression can go;<\/p>\n
I believe that children, having grown up in a non-Belarusian environment, will become bearers of the values of this environment, accordingly, Belarus is the only place on Earth where we can create our own reliable environment;<\/p>\n
I see that the neighboring countries create their national myths on foundations that are often very different or even contradictory to the Belarusian one;<\/p>\n
I see that Belarus’ neighboring countries face challenges that may require no less sacrifice than the current situation demands from Belarusians today.”<\/p>\n
On January 11, 2021, Andrej Ku\u017anie\u010dyk was recognized as a political prisoner.<\/p>\n
In May 2022, he was transferred from Pre-trial Detention Center No. 1 to Mahilo\u016d Prison No. 4.<\/p>\n
Andrej Ku\u017anie\u010dyk is charged under part 1 of Art. 361-1 of the Criminal Code (creation of an extremist formation or participation in it).<\/p>\n
The trial took place on June 8, 2022, in the Mahilo\u016d Regional Court.<\/p>\n
Behind bars, with no way to reach his children, his poetic talent developed. Andrej Ku\u017anie\u010dyk writes poems for his children Janina and Ma\u0107viej. These poems have been appreciated by other parents who read them to their children.<\/p>\n
Andrej Ku\u017anie\u010dyk has been accused of “creating an extremist formation” (Article 361-1 of the Criminal Code) and sentenced to 6 years in a medium-security penal colony. The trial was held behind closed doors in Mahilo\u016d.<\/p>\n
On September 1, 2022, Andrej was transferred from Prison No. 4 to Colony No. 1 in Navapolack. It also became known that the Ministry of Internal Affairs included Andrej in the list of persons involved in “extremist” activities.<\/p>\n
Andrej Ku\u017anie\u010dyk was released on February 12, 2025 and forced into exile.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Author of poems and a blog for cyclists “BelaVela”, in which he discussed the life and problems of cyclists in Belarus, translator from the Slovenian language.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":10790,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4310],"class_list":["post-10789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bylyya_lyudzi_slova_u_nyavoli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10789"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21360,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10789\/revisions\/21360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}