{"id":102783,"date":"2024-08-30T17:53:24","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T14:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/102783\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:40:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:40:57","slug":"human-rights-defenders-label-five-as-political-prisoners","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/102783\/","title":{"rendered":"Human rights defenders label five as political prisoners"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Illustration photo (Marco Chilese \/ unsplash.com)<\/span>\n <\/div>\n <\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

August 30, Pozirk.<\/em><\/strong> Human rights defenders have designated five people as political prisoners, bringing the total to 1,376, the Viasna Human Rights Center reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They granted this status to Kaciaryna Miendryk, Ksienija Su\u0161a, Ina P\u0142achatniuk and Ihar Mielnika\u016d, taken into custody or sentenced to prison on an extremism charge, as well as Leanid Kozyr, sentenced on charges of extremism funding and participating in a foreign armed conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The activists demanded freedom for these and all other political prisoners and an end to reprisals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authorities use imprisonment and criminal prosecution for various protest activities to suppress social and political activism, dissent and anti-war demonstrations, the human rights activists said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They pointed out that in 2021, the authorities tightened the penal code and updated it with new provisions to target dissidents. The interior ministry and the Committee for State Security (KGB) arbitrarily label dissident civic groups and media as extremist, they said. This, in turn, paves the way to arbitrary criminalization and imprisonment as a disproportionate restriction on the right to association and freedom of expression, they added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides Viasna, the statement was signed by Pravavaja Inicyjatyva, the Barys Zvozska\u016d Human Rights House, the Belarusian Association of Journalists, and Lawtrend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Belarusian authorities have arrested about 65,000 people for political reasons in the four years since the August 2020 presidential election, Viasna reported earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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