Veterinarian from near Stolin sentenced for "abetting extremist activity"
Valyantsin Marchuk is 41 years old. The man lived in the village of Mankavichy, Stolin district, Brest region.
Valyantsin Marchuk worked at the Stolin District Veterinary Clinic.
A trial against him recently took place. Marchuk's case was heard by the court of Pinsk district and the city of Pinsk. He was found guilty under parts 1 and 2 of Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code — abetting extremist activity.
The man was sentenced to home detention ("home chemistry").
Mass political repressions in the country began after 2020. At that time, Alyaksandr Lukashenka lost to Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, but did not hand over power to her, forcing her to leave the country. Mass popular protests against the dictatorship and election fraud took place. The authorities responded with repression.
According to calculations by the "Belpol" union of security forces and human rights defenders, the names of at least 10,100 people who have fallen under politically motivated criminal cases are known. In total, these or other political repressions (criminal cases, administrative cases, dismissals, searches, forced emigration) have affected hundreds of thousands of Belarusians.
The Belarusian authorities consider "extremism" to be the demand for free elections with transparent vote counting, as well as virtually any criticism of the authorities, pro-Russian historical narratives, expressions of solidarity with Ukraine, and anti-war speeches.
Many recent criminal cases under the article on "abetting 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 Matolka.
The "Hayun case" began after security forces detained an activist who had been living underground in Belarus for several years. A link to join the Hayun bot, which had been sent to her at the very beginning of the project's existence, was found on her mobile phone. The fatal error 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.
«Nasha Niva» — the bastion of Belarus
SUPPORT USNow reading
"Doctor", lawyer, man with a camera and several strong guys. In Petropavlivska Borshchahivka, Russian special services took advantage of a specific Ukrainian wartime business 1515
Comments