Игорь Ильяш
The Ministry of Internal Affairs has added 24 more people to the “List of Citizens of the Republic of Belarus, Foreign Citizens or Stateless Persons Involved in Extremist Activities”.
Among them are political prisoner Ihar Iliyash and the defendants in the Pismo.bel case — Aliaksandr Lykshyn, Aliaksandr Mazur and Pavel Karaniukhin.
The list now contains 6,066 names.
Iliyash was detained in October 2024. He was charged with “discrediting Belarus” (Article 369-1) and “facilitating extremist activity” (Part 2 of Article 361-4). In September he was sentenced to four years in a high-security penal colony and fined 100 base units. In his final statement, Iliyash rejected all accusations and did not plead guilty.
Ihar Iliyash is the husband of Belsat journalist Katsiaryna Andreyeva, who has been sentenced to 8.3 years in prison on a state treason charge.
Pismo.bel was a service for sending letters to inmates. It was intended for all prisoners, with only 10% of letters going to political prisoners. Mazur and Karaniukhin were each sentenced to 3.5 years in a high-security colony, while Lykshyn received three years and seven months. All three were also fined 1,000 base units.
Belarusian authorities regularly use extremism-related charges to target political opponents and dissent in general.