{"id":177850,"date":"2026-03-03T11:25:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T08:25:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/177850\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T12:05:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T12:05:06","slug":"reprisals-two-minsk-women-convicted-of-extremism","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/news\/177850\/","title":{"rendered":"Reprisals: two Minsk women convicted of extremism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

March 3, Pozirk<\/em>. <\/strong>The Minsk City Court found Michalina Vitalenia and Karyna Kucko guilty of facilitating extremist activities, Na\u0161a Niva<\/em> reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vitalenia was likely given a restricted freedom term. Kucko was persecuted for corresponding with the now-defunct Bie\u0142aruski Hajun project for monitoring military activity in Belarus. Her sentence remains unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other cases of politically-motivated persecution documented in Belarus from February 28 to March 2 included political prisoner designations for media managers U\u0142adzimir Janukievi\u010d and Andrej Pakalenka, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) reported. Last week, both were given lengthy prison terms on high treason charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The information ministry announced extremist content designations for the website and social media accounts of Human Constanta rights group, Palatno Media <\/em>on TikTok, several Telegram channels, as well as  Andrew D\u017ean<\/em> and Olya Tokarchuk<\/em> on Threads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interior ministry branded the Viej\u0161noryja group and its social media pages as extremist, blacklisting art manager Aleh \u0141ary\u010da\u016d as a member. Rights groups designated \u0141ary\u010da\u016d, persecuted on extremism-related charges, as a political prisoner in mid-January.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former prisoner Pavie\u0142 Sieviaryniec shared an account of torture at the \u015ak\u0142o\u016d penal colony in the Mahilo\u016d region. “While music is playing in the corridor of a punishment cell, you are forced to stand at attention next to a bunk bed attached to the wall,\u201d he said on Facebook. \u201cUsually, the music is turned on when the inspection begins, which means you stand with your arms outstretched and your legs apart until the assistant warden on duty has gone through all 23 cells of the solitary confinement and listened to the prisoners’ \u2018reports\u2019. It can take half an hour or even an hour. And in the morning they open the windows. . . so in the winter, you listen to the \u2018disco\u2019 shivering from the cold.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of March 3, human rights defenders identified at least 1,143 political prisoners, but the real number is considerably higher because many cases go undocumented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n
\n \"\"