Tatsiana from Rechytsa Sentenced for «Aiding Extremist Activity»
46-year-old Rechytsa resident Tatsiana Sharak worked in the beauty industry for a long time.
Tatsiana Sharak. Photo from her VKontakte page
Tatsiana Sharak is a graduate of Francysk Skaryna Homiel State University. In 2003, she defended her diploma at the Faculty of Economics with a specialization in «Economics and Management».
Tatsiana has two minor sons. She works as a hair extension master in Rechytsa.
Recently, the woman was sentenced in the Homiel Regional Court. She was accused under parts 1 and 2 of Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code of Belarus — «aiding extremist activity». This article is usually associated with the Gayun case.
Tatsiana was sentenced to restricted freedom at home.
The Belarusian authorities consider subscriptions to independent channels, media, the presence of links to them on social networks, or the presence of Belarusian national, pre-Lukashenka symbols on social networks or on personal items as «extremism». «Extremism» also includes virtually any criticism of the authorities, official historical narratives, or expressions of solidarity with Ukraine.
Numerous recent criminal cases under the article on «aiding extremism» have been linked to the «Gayun case».
«Belaruski Hayun» is an OSINT monitoring project that was created in 2022, when Russia attacked Ukraine through Belarus. The project tracked the military activity of Russian and Belarusian troops, relying on information from Belarusians. Its activities were coordinated by a group of activists led by Anton Motolko.
The «Gayun case» began after security forces detained an activist who had lived underground in Belarus for several years. On her mobile phone, they found a link to join the Gayun bot, which had been sent to her at the very beginning of the project's existence. The fatal mistake was that the link was permanent. Therefore, the security forces were able to connect to the bot and download all information from it. They obtained messages from accounts that wrote to the bot, as well as their IDs and usernames.
The founder of «Hayun», Anton Motolko, immediately after the hack, explained how the information leak occurred and announced the project's closure.
According to estimates by the «Belpol» association of security forces and human rights activists, the names of 9594 people who faced politically motivated criminal cases are known. In total, various political repressions (criminal cases, administrative cases, dismissals, searches) affected about 500,000 Belarusians. Several hundred thousand people were forced to leave the country.