All persecuted

Artem, an anarchist activist, was arrested on August 4, 2021, in connection with a criminal case opened under the article "organizing and preparing actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them."

In January 2022, Artem and other defendants were charged with additional membership in an extremist group for subscribing to the Telegram channel "Pramen." At the time of his arrest, the channel had not yet been added to the list of extremist groups; this only happened in November 2021.

In April 2022, Artem was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment in a penal colony.

He was released in July 2024 as part of a pardon.

Alla was convicted for a social media comment under a photo of the deputy head of the Kobrin District Police Department. According to the prosecution, the comment, published on August 25, 2020, contained obscene language and a negative assessment of the government official.

In March 2022, Alla was pardoned.

Maxim was convicted in 2021 of "insulting a government official" and sentenced to restricted freedom and placement in an open-type facility.

In July 2022, he was released under pardon.

In February 2024, a court hearing was held on three charges: "desecration of buildings and damage to property" and "illegal trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances." The details of the case and the outcome of the trial are unknown.

Oleg is a journalist for Radio Svaboda, previously worked for the Znamya Yunosti newspaper, and was one of the founders of the RID news agency. In the summer of 2020, he actively covered the protests in Belarus and conducted live streams. In August, he lost his Foreign Ministry accreditation along with other journalists from foreign media outlets.

On July 16, 2021, he was detained during a large-scale search of independent journalists' homes. He was released ten days later, remaining a suspect. On December 23 of that year, security forces again raided his home and took him into custody on charges of "organizing and preparing actions that grossly violate public order or actively participating in them."

In March 2022, the court found Oleg guilty, declaring that he participated in unauthorized protests during which Minsktrans calculated damages of 56,000 rubles.

In September 2022, the journalist was released as part of a pardon.

Denis was detained in March 2021 and convicted for comments left in the Telegram chat "Molodechno for Life Chat". The victims were recognized as Molodechno police officers, a female employee of the Grodno OMON, as well as public figures - Lukashenko, Yermoshina and Karpenkov.

In August 2024, he was released under a pardon.

Evgeny was convicted in April 2021 of desecration of the national flag for yanking a flag hanging on a shopping mall and causing it to fall.

He was released in September of the same year as part of a pardon.

Sergei was detained in a criminal case opened after a protest that took place in Pinsk on the night of August 9-10, 2020 against falsifications in the presidential elections. He was convicted of participating in "mass riots."

He was released in August 2024 under a pardon.

Sergei was convicted under the article “insulting a government official” and found guilty of insulting the head of the Orsha Juvenile Affairs Inspectorate, Vishnevsky, in a comment published in the Telegram chat “Orsha 97%”.

He was released in September 2021 as part of a pardon.

Lyudmila was convicted of insulting Lukashenko and arrested right in the courtroom. According to the prosecution, on August 12, 2020, she posted a long message with expressions addressed to Lukashenko on the social network VKontakte from her husband's account. At the trial, the woman explained that she published it for herself and did not realize that the post was available to other users. According to her, the page usually posted photos of animals, and this message was published publicly by mistake.

Lyudmila was released on March 9, 2022, as part of a pardon.

Sofia, a student at the European Humanities University and a citizen of the Russian Federation, was detained in May 2021 after the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk by Belarusian authorities. The plane was en route from Athens to Vilnius. Sofia was accused of administering the Telegram channel "Black Book of Belarus", which published personal data and information about the private lives of civil servants.

At the end of December 2021, she was finally charged under seven articles of the Criminal Code, after which the case was referred to court.

The case was heard behind closed doors. In May 2022, Sofia was found guilty of two criminal charges. Following the trial, she was sentenced to imprisonment and ordered to pay compensation to the victims and court fees totaling about $70,000. The entire amount was subsequently paid by her family.

Sofia was released in June 2023 as part of a pardon.

Igor was convicted for a comment left on a Telegram channel regarding the situation with a policeman beating a pregnant woman.

He was released in September 2021 as part of a pardon.

Roman is a Belarusian journalist and former editor of the Telegram channels NEXTA and Belarus of the Brain, which have been declared extremist by the authorities. In 2020, he was charged with several criminal offenses, including “organizing mass riots” and “inciting hatred.” In May 2021, he was detained after Belarusian authorities forcibly landed a Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius in Minsk.

In June of that year, he was transferred to house arrest.

The trial in the "NEXTA case" began in 2023. Roman was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony, but after the verdict was announced, he was not taken into custody and remained under house arrest.

He was released in May 2023 as part of a pardon.

Yevgeny was convicted for participating in a protest action - the March for the Liberation of Political Prisoners, which took place on October 4, 2020 in Minsk, during which he struck the outer cell of the temporary detention facility on Okrestina Street twice. However, there was no damage to the cell.

Released in September 2021 as part of a pardon.

Valentin was detained in a criminal case opened after a protest that took place in Pinsk on the night of August 9-10, 2020 against falsifications in the presidential elections. After the detention, the man felt ill and was taken under escort to the Pinsk Central Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a pre-infarction condition and placed in intensive care. As soon as his condition improved, he was transferred to a temporary detention facility and later convicted of participating in "mass riots."

He was released in August 2024 under a pardon.

Artem, a student, was first detained and severely beaten after a protest, the Pensioners' March, in November 2020. He was then sentenced to 15 days under an administrative article.

However, on March 24, 2021, during the days of mass preventive detentions before Freedom Day, he was arrested again early in the morning in a dormitory, allegedly because of a flag he had spotted, and sentenced to 25 days of administrative arrest. But the very next day, a video appeared on the Telegram channel of the propagandist Azarenka, in which Artem confessed to administering the public page. It later became known that he was beaten with truncheons to force him to record this confession.

He was never released, as a criminal case was opened against him. Artem was subsequently convicted of "participation in group actions that grossly violate public order" and "creation of an extremist group."

Released in January 2025 as part of a pardon.