41-year-old woman from Bobruisk convicted in a political case. She was harassed already in 2020

Hanna Krasneuskaya. Photo: olimpia-fitbobr.orgs.biz

Hanna Krasneuskaya is 41 years old. She lives in Bobruisk, is married, and raises a 10-year-old son. The woman is fond of intellectual games and quizzes.

The family lived a normal life — judging by social media, in February 2025, the Krasneuskaya family even managed to fly to Egypt for a short vacation.

The Bobruisk resident came into the security forces' sight during the post-election protests. In October 2020, a local court fined her 10 basic units (270 rubles at the time) for participating in mass events.

Now, a criminal case has become known. The Mogilev Regional Court found Krasneuskaya guilty under Part 1 of Art. 361-4 of the Criminal Code, facilitation of extremist activity. What exactly became the reason for the persecution and what precise term was assigned to the woman is still unknown. She was sentenced to restricted freedom.

The authorities of Belarus consider "extremism" to include 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 items. "Extremism" also practically includes any criticism of the authorities, official historical narratives, or expressions of solidarity with Ukraine.

Many recent criminal cases under the article on "facilitation of extremism" have been linked to the "Hayun case".

"Belaruski Hayun" is an OSINT monitoring project that was created in 2022 when Russia invaded 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 "Hayun case" began after security forces detained an activist who had lived underground in Belarus for several years. A link to join the Hayun bot was found on her mobile phone, which had been sent to her at the very beginning of the project's existence. The fatal mistake was that the link was permanent. As a result, the security forces were able to connect to the bot and extract 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, explained immediately after the hack how the information leak occurred and announced the closure of the project.

According to estimates by the "Belpol" security forces association and human rights activists, the names of 9594 people who fell under politically motivated criminal cases are known. In total, some form of political repression (criminal cases, administrative cases, dismissals, searches) affected about 500,000 Belarusians. Several hundred thousand people were forced to leave the country.

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