All persecuted
- Home
- All persecuted
On 09.02.2024, the appeal was heard and the verdict came into force.
According to human rights activists, he will be released in the fall of 2024.
unknown
unknown
Oleg was arrested on March 21, 2023, for administrative offenses and charged with the production, distribution, or possession of extremist materials under Article 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses .
Previously, Oleg was involved in social and cultural activities, at one time he led the Gomel “toloka”, and as a writer he published a lot in magazines and newspapers.
The trial was held behind closed doors.
On March 5, 2024, the appeal was heard and the verdict came into force.
According to human rights activists, he will be released in the spring of 2025.
2.5 years of restriction of freedom without direction
2.5 years of restriction of freedom without direction
- Associations
- Entrepreneurs
- Associations
- Entrepreneurs
unknown
- Associations
- Workers
- Parents of minors
- Associations
- Workers
- Parents of minors
Worked at BMZ in Zhlobin. Detained for comments on social media.
At the time of his arrest, Dmitry's youngest child was six months old, and his two older children were under six years old. His wife was on maternity leave.
On June 26, 2024, he was released, having fully served the sentence imposed by the court.
- Associations
- Retirees
- Associations
- Retirees
Okolotovich was arrested at a cemetery. The KGB lured the priest there by tricking him into coming there: they called him and told him a woman had died and needed a Catholic burial. At the cemetery, they handcuffed him and placed a black helmet on his head so no one could see who was being taken or where.
Two of his parishioners, a man and a woman, were detained at the same time. They spent approximately nine months in a KGB pretrial detention center, where they were forced to testify about the priest's alleged meetings with foreign diplomats.
The charges ultimately brought against Okolotovich were outlandish: he allegedly somehow diverted Russian and Belarusian air force planes in the opposite direction, thereby causing damage not only to Belarus but also to the Russian Aerospace Forces—a total of one million euros. Upon his arrest, approximately 270,000 euros were confiscated from him—mostly parish funds, not the priest's personal funds. This sum was applied toward the debt, and the remainder was claimed as additional payment in Belarusian rubles.
By that time, Okolotovich had already been under surveillance for a long time, but nothing could be found that would prove espionage.
The priest became the latest religious figure to be affected by the regime's repression of religious communities in Belarus.
Genrikh suffered a heart attack and recently underwent stomach surgery for cancer. He requires medical supervision and constant medication. He slept on the floor and boards for over a year; he was only moved to a bunk bed before the trial.
The KGB offered Okolotovych a special condition for his release. Upon returning to Volozhin, he was to invite the Vatican's apostolic nuncio to a church service and discreetly hand him a flash drive containing incriminating evidence—a pretext to discredit the diplomat. At the time, Ante Jozic was the nuncio to Belarus. This provocation against the nuncio wasn't the only one: according to Krylov, the KGB proposed similar scenarios against other foreign diplomats, primarily Polish ones. The priest refused everything: "I am completely imbued with God's ecclesiastical purposes. And what you demand of me is a crime. I cannot betray God."
In November 2025, he was pardoned after a visit to Belarus by the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, as a special envoy of Pope Leo XIV.
He was detained on 10/31/2023 and sentenced under an administrative article to 15 days, after which a criminal case was opened against him and he was transferred to a pre-trial detention center.
2 years of restriction of freedom without direction