{"id":1534,"date":"2023-08-08T11:36:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-08T08:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/api.pozirk.online\/?post_type=articles&#038;p=1534"},"modified":"2026-02-24T20:40:57","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T20:40:57","slug":"update-on-arrests-trials-politically-motivated-persecution-16","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/1534\/","title":{"rendered":"Update on arrests, trials, politically-motivated persecution"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>August 8,&nbsp;<em>BPN<\/em>.<\/strong>&nbsp;New cases of politically-motivated persecution were documented in Belarus on August 7 as authorities keep punishing Belarusians for sharing opposition content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arrests<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past week, Committee for State Security (KGB) agents arrested at least five people in Mahilo\u016d, including blacksmith D\u017amitryj Cumaro\u016d and teacher Julija Pap\u0142a\u016dskaja, MAYDAY.TEAM reported. The arrested may have been released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Police arrested Natalla Kruk and Safija Bahaviec, the Viasna Human Rights Center reported. Both refused to talk to state television journalist Ryhor Azaronak when he tried to film them for a propaganda video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Armed riot police broke into an apartment of a girl who allegedly wrote insulting online comments, a pro-government source said. She was forced to apologize in a police video.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The KGB agents arrested Alaksandar Ma\u0107viejenka\u016d from Mahilo\u016d for allegedly donating money to the opposition initiative ByHelp that authorities branded extremist, MAYDAY.TEAM said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Trials<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A judge in H\u0142ybokaje, Viciebsk region, jailed retired teacher Alena Ki\u0161kurna, 66, for 10 days for sharing opposition content on social media, the Viciebsk branch of Viasna said. The trial took place on June 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Police also drew a report on similar charges against Dzianis Da\u0161kievi\u010d from Raha\u010do\u016d, Homiel region, for posting a picture of Polish President Andrzej Duda against a background of the white-red-white flag, Viasna reported. Da\u0161kievi\u010d is currently living abroad but police came to his Belarusian home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Alina Hornak from Sianno, Viciebsk region, was fined 740 rubels ($235) for following zerkalo.io Instagram page, a local Viciebsk Telegram channel reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Authorities jailed a man from Bras\u0142a\u016d for 10 days for sharing opposition content while Iryna Piarcova from Viciebsk was fined 1,850 rubels (over $580) for photos from 2020 protests on her VKontakte page, the same channel said. Earlier, she had served a two-year prison term on charges widely seen as politically motivated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other instances of persecution<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jailed philosopher U\u0142adzimir Mackievi\u010d underwent surgery and remains in a hospital where he will stay at least until the end of this week, his associates said on Facebook. In June 2022, authorities sentenced the prominent regime critic to five years in prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As of August 8, human rights defenders identified at least 1,484 political prisoners but the real number is considerably higher because many cases go undocumented. Opposition sources estimate the number of political prisoners at around 5,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>August 8,&nbsp;BPN.&nbsp;New cases of politically-motivated persecution were documented in Belarus on August 7 as authorities keep punishing Belarusians for sharing opposition content. Arrests Over the past week, Committee for State Security (KGB) agents arrested at least five people in Mahilo\u016d, including blacksmith D\u017amitryj Cumaro\u016d and teacher Julija Pap\u0142a\u016dskaja, MAYDAY.TEAM reported. The arrested may have been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"template":"","rubric":[16],"class_list":["post-1534","articles","type-articles","status-publish","hentry","rubric-politics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Update on arrests, trials, politically-motivated persecution | Pozirk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"August 8,&nbsp;BPN.&nbsp;New cases of politically-motivated persecution were documented in Belarus on August 7 as authorities keep punishing Belarusians\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/1534\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Update on arrests, 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