Update on arrests, trials, detention conditions

September 16, BPN. New cases of politically-motivated persecution were documented in Belarus on September 15.

Arrests

A former head of Alaksandr Łukašenka’s press pool, Dźmitryj Siemčanka and his wife Julija were arrested, BPN reported. She was soon released, but police took her smartphone. On September 16, she would go on trial for “a repost.” The charges against her husband remain unclear. Dźmitryj Siemčanka had been already arrested for 15 days back in September 2020. After the presidential election, he resigned from state-run television channel ONT, where he had worked for 11 years, in protest against police violence towards protesters.

Five people, aged between 35 and 51, were arrested for hanging out white-red-white and Ukrainian flags at a 19-storey residential building in Minsk in late August, said the interior ministry’s press office. Police reportedly learned about the flags from a message to their Telegram channel, Militsia Minsk. According to the police, the arrested subscribed to Telegram channels deemed extremist, while “the so-called protest act was organized by a woman from Minsk who now lives abroad.”

Criminal charges

Ivan Muraŭjoŭ, 43, the Minsk hookah bar owner arrested on September 1, was charged with association with an “extremist” group. He was one of the founders of the state-run STV channel and has cooperated with non-state media outlets more recently, Naša Niva reported.

Trials

Illa Davydzienka was sentenced to three years in prison and Maryna Markievič, to two and a half years, while Hanna Kisialova, Viktar Chimaroda, and Maksim Maculevič were given 18 months in prison each for burning an effigy of Alaksandr Łukašenka, the Viasna Human Rights Center reported.

Pavieł Nozdra, an environmental activist from Mazyr and co-chair of the Belarusian Christian Democracy Party’s organizing committee in custody since May 11, was sentenced to two years in prison for sharing pictures of Russian military equipment with Belaruski Hajun, a Telegram channel tracking movements of Russian troops in Belarus.

Prison conditions

Sciapan Łatypaŭ, serving eight and a half years on politically-motivated charges, will be transferred from the penal colony in the Ivacevičy district, Brest region, to a prison for the next two years, the Viasna Human Rights Center reported.

Opposition activist Palina Šarenda-Panasiuk, sentenced to three years in prison and declared a political prisoner by human rights groups, was left in a punishment cell for another 10 days. She will spend a total of at least 60 days in the cell. Her lawyer has been denied permission to visit her for three months, Viasna said.

Anarchist activist Mikałai Dziadok, also considered a political prisoner, has been kept in a punishment cell for 44 days. He is currently serving a five-year prison sentence at a Hrodna prison, Dziadok’s Telegram channel said.

Other instances of persecution

Belarus blocked access to greenbelarus.info, a website that covers environmental issues, BPN reported. The website still can be accessed outside of Belarus.

As of September 16, human rights defenders identified at least 1,337 political prisoners.