{"id":21314,"date":"2025-12-09T07:12:22","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T07:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/?p=21314"},"modified":"2025-12-17T07:17:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T07:17:26","slug":"valery-paznyakevich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/2025\/12\/09\/valery-paznyakevich.html","title":{"rendered":"Valery Pazniakievi\u010d"},"content":{"rendered":"
Political persecution:<\/strong><\/h5>\n

On 20 November 2024, Valery Pazniakievi\u010d was detained following a denunciation by a pro-Russian activist and sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest for posting socio-political poems on social media. According to the poet, police officers also objected to the language of his work: \u201cDuring the search of my flat on 20 November 2024, police major Kaciaryna Stankievi\u010d asked why I write in Belarusian rather than Russian.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2025, Pazniakievi\u010d received five further administrative arrests for poems and statements published online. Since November 2024, his writings have been subjected to repeated expert assessments, with investigators seeking evidence of \u201cextremism\u201d, focusing on the poems <\/span>My Golgotha<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Chagall\u2019s Flight<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2024 and 2025, he paid fines totalling 115 base units (4,830 roubles \/ 1,660 USD) for online expression.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 14 August 2025, the Minsk District Court convicted him under Article 368(2) of the Criminal Code (\u201cinsulting the President of the Republic of Belarus\u201d). It sentenced him to three years of restricted liberty in an open-type correctional facility. <\/strong><\/p>\n

An appeal submitted by his mother, Nadzieja Pazniakievi\u010d, to the Presidential Administration seeking mitigation of the sentence was rejected.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Valery Pazniakievi\u010d was born on 10 April 1968 in the village of Sinkievi\u010dy, \u0141uniniec District, Brest Region. He graduated from the Belarusian Department of the Faculty of Philology at Belarusian State University and subsequently worked as a journalist. Before his arrest, he was caring for his mother, who has a first-degree disability and severe mobility impairments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pazniakievi\u010d is the author of <\/span>Circles of Life: Poems<\/span><\/i> (Minsk: Smeltak, 2017). His work has appeared in <\/span>Polymia<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Belarus<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Ma\u0142ados\u0107<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Biarozka<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Pier\u0161acviet<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Zrok<\/span><\/i>; in the <\/span>Day of Poetry<\/span><\/i> almanack; and in numerous newspapers including <\/span>Literatura i Mastactva<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>\u010cyrvonaja Zmiena<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Na\u0161a S\u0142ova<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Minskaja Pra\u016dda<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Bie\u0142aruskaja Niva<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Narodnaja Vola<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>\u0141uninieckija Naviny<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

His poems have been included in the secondary school reader <\/span>Touch the Native Word with Your Heart<\/span><\/i>, as well as the anthologies <\/span>Ahliedziny<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Towards the Spirit<\/span><\/i>, and <\/span>A Poem for Freedom<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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

Poems and songs on social media:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61578334476917<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=100011745460176<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/CPI2niQHfXu\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Place of detention:<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Open-type correctional facility, 220012, 76A \u010caluskinca<\/span>\u016d<\/span> Street, Mahilo\u016d.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poet, bard<\/b>.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":21315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4282],"class_list":["post-21314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-people-of-word"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21314","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\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21314"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21388,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21314\/revisions\/21388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/penbelarus.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}