Gennady Fedorovich Vasilyuk
On September 15, 2023, 57-year-old Gennady Vasilyuk was fined for "distributing extremist materials." Subscriptions to "extremist" materials were found on Gennady's Odnoklassniki page. Furthermore, Vasilyuk was dismissed from the locomotive depot "by mutual agreement."
On December 7, 2023, Gennady was arrested in connection with a criminal case for "defamation of Lukashenko" (Part 1, Article 367 of the Criminal Code) and placed in pretrial detention. The case was heard on February 22 and 26, 2024.
The man was accused of posting "likes" on three videos featuring economist Yaroslav Romanchuk on the social media site Odnoklassniki on June 8, 9, and 17, 2022.
Gennady admitted his guilt and stated that on the specified dates in June, he traveled to a village in the Zhabinka district, as confirmed by a mobile phone statement. He uses a push-button phone, so he couldn't have accessed Odnoklassniki while in the village.
Prosecutor Yegor Kronda found Gennady's guilt fully proven and requested a sentence of one year and six months in prison for him.
Gennady was convicted a second time on September 16, 2024, for participating in protests. His wife and three others were also convicted along with him. According to the court, the charge against all three was that on August 10, 2020, in Brest, people "shouted slogans, whistled, clapped, displayed white-red-white banners, and stepped onto the roadway." In doing so, they allegedly grossly violated public order.
The court sentenced Gennady to one and a half years in prison, but taking into account the unserved previous (political) sentence, the final sentence was only two years in a general regime penal colony.
He was expected to be released in October 2025 .
How to write a letter
✏️ A postcard with words of encouragement (a poem by your favorite author, song lyrics, or a beautiful quote). Trust us, even such simple gestures are very meaningful to a person in jail.
✏️ Your life events. To a person who is in isolation for a long time, any story about your routine endeavors will be a window into normal life. Your day-to-day worries and mundane matters are much more interesting than the daily grind of life behind bars.
✏️ It is important to share news. Mention the most notable and interesting occurrences depending on your pen-pal's interests.
✍️️ Remember that every letter is censored. This means that your letters are read by strangers whose main goal is to limit inmates' access to information or to use it against the prisoners or even you.
So try to avoid:
👉️️ harsh statements regarding ongoing political matters
👉 statements against the authorities and public servants
👉 foul language
👉 discussion of the circumstances of the criminal case
Involved in repression
