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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. In addition, Vasilyuk was fired from the locomotive depot "by mutual agreement."
On December 7, 2023, Gennady was detained as part of a criminal case for "slandering Lukashenko" (Part 1 of Article 367 of the Criminal Code) and placed in custody in a pretrial detention center. The case was heard on February 22 and 26, 2024.
The man was accused of posting the "like" reaction on the Odnoklassniki social network on June 8, 9, and 17, 2022, under three videos featuring economist Yaroslav Romanchuk.
Gennady admitted his guilt and reported that on the specified days in June he went to a village in the Zhabinka district, which is confirmed by an extract from a mobile operator. The man uses a push-button phone, so he could not log into Odnoklassniki in the village.
Prosecutor Yegor Kronda considered Gennady's guilt to be fully proven and requested one year and six months of imprisonment for him.
Gennady was convicted for the second time on September 16, 2024, for participating in protests. His wife and three other people were convicted along with him. According to the court, the essence of the charge against everyone was that on August 10, 2020, people in Brest "shouted slogans, whistled, clapped their hands, demonstrated white-red-white banners, and went out 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) term, the final sentence was only 2 years in a general regime prison.
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Stanislav, a Ukrainian citizen, was arrested in May 2021 in a criminal case opened after spontaneous protests against election fraud that took place in Brest on August 10, 2020. He was convicted of participating in “mass riots.”
Dmitry was a witness in the case of Brest political prisoners, bloggers Sergei Petrukhin and Alexander Kabanov, who were sentenced to three years in a general regime penal colony in April of this year. As the activist told Brest human rights defenders, a criminal case was opened against him for refusing to answer questions from the judge who was considering the case of Petrukhin and Kabanov, since he did not show the judge's service ID.
Released on 26.02.2022.
On December 11, 16 and 17, 2024, new hearings of Dmitry's case took place in the Leninsky District Court of Brest under Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus. Dmitry was sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment.
Ruslan was first detained on August 10, 2020, during a protest in Brest against falsifications in the presidential elections. After a brutal beating, he was hospitalized and then sentenced to 7 days of administrative arrest. A criminal case was later opened against him, but he left the country during the investigation.
Upon returning to Belarus, Ruslan attempted to cross the border into the European Union, but was detained. In November 2021, he was convicted of participating in “mass riots.”
In July 2024, he was convicted again, this time for “malicious disobedience to the demands of the administration of a correctional institution.” This article is used to try prisoners who refuse to cooperate with the administration, based on fictitious violations.
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Since 2020, Elena has been subjected to systematic persecution for political reasons: she has been detained and arrested under administrative articles 17 times, and has been fined a total of 173 basic units. Her home has been searched several times.
In May 2021, Elena was convicted of "participating in group actions that grossly violate public order" in a criminal case opened after a protest on September 13, 2020 in Brest, where participants sang songs and danced in circles, and a water cannon was used against them. According to the prosecution, the protest disrupted the operation of transport. She was sentenced to restriction of freedom without being sent to an institution.
In September of the same year, Elena was convicted again for “insulting Lukashenko.” The combined sentences amounted to three years of “house arrest.”
In January 2022, she was arrested for "violating the serving of a sentence" and sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest. However, she was never released - she was transferred to a pretrial detention center as part of a new criminal case initiated for slandering Lukashenko and discrediting the Republic of Belarus. In June, she was sentenced to imprisonment and a large fine.
In April 2023, Elena was convicted again under the article "malicious disobedience to the demands of the colony administration." This article is often applied to prisoners who refuse to cooperate with the administration, for fictitious violations.
It is known that physical and psychological pressure is constantly applied to Elena. She is regularly placed in solitary confinement and PKT, deprived of almost all parcels, calls, visits, and her merchandise allowance was reduced from three basic units to one.
In February 2025, Polina Sharendo-Panasyuk reported that Elena had been placed in the PKT again: “After several weeks in the punishment cell, she was transferred to the PKT. It is 99% likely that Article 411 will be fabricated against her again.”
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Alexey, an activist in the anarchist movement, was detained in March 2021 as part of a criminal case brought against anarchists from the Brest region. He was convicted under several criminal articles, such as “participation in group actions that grossly violate public order” and “creation of an extremist group and participation in it.”
It is known that the charges are based on the episode with the blocking of roads in Brest in 2018 during a protest against the construction of the battery plant, as well as participation in the "March of the Non-Parasites", which took place on March 5, 2017.
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Alexander was detained after a protest against the results of the presidential elections, which took place on August 11, 2020 in Brest. At this protest, Gennady Shutov was shot in the back of the head, which Alexander witnessed. He was later convicted of resisting and attempting to kill Captain Roman Gavrilov, who shot the protester, and Warrant Officer Arseniy Galitsyn, who acted as victims.
