Thread by @JanekLasocki, 1/ This Christmas+New Year take a moment to think of the 159 [...]

1/ This Christmas+New Year take a moment to think of the 159 Belarusian political prisoners who remain behind bars.
Their crime: trying this year to peacefully stand up to an authoritarian regime
Below are just a very few of them
THREAD

(list compiled by NGO @viasna96)
#Belarus

2/ @viktar_babaryka and Sviatlana @Tsihanouskaya's husband Sergei mobilised unprecedented support as presidential candidates earlier this year. As a result they were barred from running in the election and have been indefinitely jailed.

3/ Dzmitry Karaka, Andrei Pazniak (who was badly beaten after his arrest) are just two of a number of people who were jailed for working on their campaigns

4/ Maria Kolesnikova. Before 2020 she was an accomplished flautist not involved in politics. She became a household name after campaigning with Tikhanovskaya and then joining protests. Bravely, she stopped the KGB deporting her by ripping up her passport.

5/ @ihar_losik – an influential vlogger and administrator of the popular @belamova Telegram channel was arrested in June. He started a hunger strike on 15 December
He’s one of a number detained for their channels on @Telegram, which has become an essential outlet for Belarusians

6/Katsiaryna Andreyeva (Bakhvalava) is a journalist at @Belsat_TV. She was arrested after live broadcasting a brutal police crackdown on peaceful demonstrators in “Changes Square”,Minsk. Two other female journalists are currently in prison, Katsiaryna Barysevich & Darya Chultsova

7/ Artsiom Sarokin is an anaesthesiologist. He has been behind bars since 19 Nov for publicly disproving police claims Roman Bondarenko (a protestor who was beaten to death by police) was drunk at the time of his death

8/ 25 yr old Marfa Rabkova was volunteer coordinator at human rights NGO Viasna and had been documenting human rights violations. She was detained in mid-September
https://twitter.com/AmnestyNow/status/1340280727670312960?s=20

https://twitter.com/AmnestyNow/status/1340280727670312960?s=20

9/ Viktar Kuushynau, employee of IT company @pandadoc is charged with fraud.
IT workers have been active supporting protests. PandaDoc's founders started “Protect Belarus”, that aims to help law enforcement officers who lost their jobs after refusing to carry out criminal orders

10/ 21-yr old Ksenia Syramalot is a student of the Faculty of Philosophy & Social Sciences of the Belarusian State University. She is also a spokesman for the Belarusian Students' Association (BSA).
She is one of a number of students persecuted for taking active part in protests

11/ Uladzislau Hulis is a 25-year-old car mechanic from Minsk. He was detained in September for painting the phrase "We Will Not Forget" on the pavement near the memorial to killed protester Aliaksandr Taraikouski. Earlier this month he was sentenced to 2 years in prison

12/ Eighteen-year-old Aliaksandr Kisialiou has been in detention since 12 August for taking part in peaceful protests after the “elections”. There are many, many like him: arbitrarily stopped and put away for taking part in peaceful protest
#BelarusProtest

13/ Others like him include 21 year old Mark Salonnikau, Yahor Prakapchuk, his father Vital or Artur Khalimonchyk from Pinsk

14/ The mobilisation of Belarusians this year has been inspiring; the repression so tragic.
Although many were given short sentences, sadly, the number of political prisoners behind bars in #Belarus at any one time is only going up with little prospect of improvement.

15/ For the full list of political prisoners in #Belarus and how to try to contact them see here
https://prisoners.spring96.org/en

#Belarus #BelarusProtest #жывебеларусь

Latest Threads Unrolled: