BPF party leader Ryhor Kastusiou, five more Belarusians listed as political prisoners

On Tuesday, the Belarusian human rights community issued a joint statement on their recognising another six persons as political prisoners, HRC Viasna reports. Ryhor Kastusiou, the chairman of the Belarusian People’s Front party and a cancer patient, is among them.

According to them, the prosecution of the following people are politically motivated:

• Syarhei Petrushenka, charged under Articles 130 and 352 of the Criminal Code (deliberate actions aimed at inciting other social enmity and discord on the basis of a different social belonging, committed by a group of persons, etc.) for leaking information about law enforcement officers to a Telegram channel; in custody since June 2021;
• Andrey Harun, charged under Part 3 of Art. 130 of the Criminal Code for leaking information about law enforcement officers to a Telegram channel;
• Tatsyana Karpovich, charged under Art. 130 of the Criminal Code, for leaking information about law enforcement officers and judges to a Telegram channel;
• Ruslan Kuzmich, charged under Part 1 of Article 361-4 (facilitating extremist activities) for publishing a commentary under the photo of a man with a weapon in his hands: “Ok, it’s time to get out the weapons. Long live Belarus!” In our opinion, in this case, imprisonment as a measure to restrict the right to freedom of expression is disproportionate and unnecessary;
• Ryhor Kastusiou, charged under Article 357 of the Criminal Code for plotting or other actions committed with the aim of seizing state power, when the circumstances of the case, as well as age and state of health of the detained politician, indicate that his remand in custody for such a long time is not at all necessary.
• Human rights activists also know about the conviction in a closed court session of Andrey Ausiyevich under Art. 130 (Incitement to hostility or discord), Art. 361 (Calls for actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of Belarus), Art. 369 (Insulting a government official) of the Criminal Code to three years and six months in a correctional facility for comments on the Internet.

Five human rights note that criminal liability for incitement of ‘other social hatred or discord” (Article 130 of the Criminal Code) has been selectively and discriminatorily applied by both the investigators and courts in an apparent attempt to protect the institutions of power.

“We emphasize once again that in a number of the above cases the actions were the result of provocations, as well as numerous and widespread human rights violations, lack of freedom of expression, lack of conditions for a democratic and constitutional change of government in fair elections, distrust of the state’s law enforcement system, including failure to properly investigate the numerous crimes against peaceful protesters and other victims of ill-treatment and torture, and disappointment in the authorities’ ability to use the force of law to protect violated rights,” the statement reads.

The human rights defenders called on the Belarusian authorities to review the measures and procedural decisions taken against these political prisoners, respect their right to a fair trial and eliminate the factors that influenced the decision to enforce pre-trial detention and sentence these individuals to imprisonment; immediately release all political prisoners and end political repression in the country.

As of December 21, there are 933 political prisoners in Belarus.

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