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Ksenia Syramalot is a 21-year-old student at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Belarusian State University. She was the spokesperson for the Belarusian Students’ Association and a volunteer at the Human Rights Center “Viasna”. On 23 November 2020, she was detained for “organising or participating in group actions that gravely breach public order” under Art. 342 part 1 of the Criminal Code. Her apartment was searched, and she was held in the KGB pre-trial prison. On 16 July 2021, she was sentenced to two years and six months in prison in a case known as “the student case”, which involved 12 defendants.

Elena Talkacheva is a journalist and was a business reporter for the independent news website, Tut.by. She was detained alongside 14 of her colleagues on 18 May 2021 in the framework of a criminal case initiated against Tut.by for tax evasion.

Levon Khalatrian worked as a bar manager and was a volunteer with [opposition politician] Viktar Babaryka’s campaign in the lead-up to the presidential election on 9 August 2020. He was detained two days after the election, on 11 August 2020, and was reported to have been badly beaten at the time. He remained in pre-trial detention for 6 months.

Marfa Rabkova is a human rights defender and a coordination of the volunteer service at the Human Rights Centre Viasna. She took part in the campaign “Human Rights Defenders for Free Elections”, which saw over 1,500 observers register for election monitoring during the 2020 presidential election. Rabkova was detained on 17 September 2020.

Maxim Znak is a lawyer who has been in detention since 18 September 2020. Shortly after his detention, he told his lawyer: “Normal life of society is impossible without law, just as human life is impossible without food”.

Volha Takarchuk runs a political vlog with almost 37,000 subscribers. She was detained several times after the August 2020 election, but on the morning of 19 May her apartment was searched, some of her belongings were seized, and she was detained. She has remained in prison since then.

Aliaksandr Vasilevich is a businessman, owner of the Vondel/Hepta advertising agency and the “Ў” Gallery, which was formerly one of the main cultural centres in Belarus. He is also the co-founder of the online media Kyky.org and TheVillage Belarus. He was detained on 28 August 2020 by representatives of the Financial Investigation Department of the State Control Committee.

In September 2020, the prominent Belarusian opposition figure Maryia Kalesnikava was abducted from Minsk and taken to the border where security forces tried to expel her from the country; she ripped up her passport in defiance. In the days that followed she was charged with incitement to undermine national security and placed in pre-trial detention. The letter that follows was written by Maryia Kalesnikava to her father on 16 July 2021, the day the Supreme Court rejected her complaint regarding the extension of her detention until 1 August.

12 квітня 2021 року білоруська влада змусила українського правозахисника Володимира Яворського залишити країну протягом 48 годин і попередила його не повертатися протягом десяти років. Його справа – ще один приклад безпрецедентного нападу на білоруське громадянське суспільство. Освітній Будинок прав людини в Чернігові (EHRHC) та HRHF поговорили з Яворським, який зараз проживає в Україні, про його допит, загрози його родині та його вислання.