{"id":16717,"date":"2025-07-02T08:28:02","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T08:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/?p=16717"},"modified":"2025-10-08T14:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T14:04:09","slug":"igar-melnikau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/2025\/07\/02\/igar-melnikau.html","title":{"rendered":"Ihar Mielnika\u016d (released on 2 July 2025)"},"content":{"rendered":"
Political persecution:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Ihar Mielnika\u016d was detained on 21 January 2024 and charged with facilitating extremist activities under Article 361.4 of the Criminal Code.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In 2024, Minsk\u2019s Central District Court designated as “extremist” three books by the historian Ihar Mielnika\u016d<\/strong>: Ni\u010dyparuk P.K., Mielnika\u016d I.B. Odyssey <\/em>of a <\/em>Pale<\/em>ssie Man<\/em>. Minsk: Alpha-book, 2017; Mielnika\u016d, I. B. The <\/em>Forgotten <\/em>C<\/em>orps: <\/em>The<\/em> H<\/em>istory of the Polish <\/em>A<\/em>rmy on the <\/em>T<\/em>erritory of Babru<\/em>jsk Region<\/em> in 1918, 1919\u20131920<\/em>. Minsk: Alpha-book, 2018; Mielnika\u016d, I. B. On the “<\/em>B<\/em>order of <\/em>C<\/em>ivilizations”. Pages of history of the <\/em>P<\/em>re-<\/em>W<\/em>ar Soviet-Polish <\/em>Border <\/em>in Belarus<\/em> Minsk: Alfa-kniga, 2020.<\/span><\/p>\n

On September 13, 2024<\/strong>, the Minsk City Court issued a verdict in the criminal case of Ihar Mielnika\u016d: 4 years of imprisonment in a low-security penal colony under Article 361.4 of the Criminal Code (facilitating extremist activity).<\/span><\/p>\n

On November 5, 2024<\/strong>, a hearing of the appeal took place in the Supreme Court, as a result of which Ihar Mielnika\u016d<\/span>\u2019s prison sentence was reduced by two years.<\/p>\n

Creative activity:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

He graduated from the History Faculty of the Belarusian State Pedagogical University (2002) and Warsaw University (2005) and earned PhD in History in 2011.<\/span><\/p>\n

His efforts were recognized with the Vacla\u016b Lasto\u016bski Award for popularizing knowledge about the history of Belarus (2014), and the Le\u016b Sapieha Award, founded by the Center for East European Studies at the Warsaw University and the College of Eastern Europe (2021).<\/span><\/p>\n

During the post-election crackdown in Belarus, he took the government’s side and published Collaborationism: The Anatomy of Treason<\/em> (2023) and was preparing to publish Proceed to Liquidation<\/em>, a book about the work of Soviet special services in post-war Belarus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ihar Mielnika\u016d was released\u00a0<\/span>on 2 July 2025.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Publications:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

https:\/\/kamunikat.org\/melnikau-ihar<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ihar Mielnika\u016d is a historian, historical reconstructor, and author of books about the history of Western Belarus and people who lived near the Belarusian-Polish border.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":16718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4310],"class_list":["post-16717","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\/16717","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\/64"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16717"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20550,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16717\/revisions\/20550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}