The Minsk City Court has sentenced well-known musician Siarhei Mikhalok in absentia. The leader of Lyapis Trubetskoy, Brutto and other projects was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in a medium-security penal colony. The verdict has not yet entered into legal force and may be appealed, the prosecutor’s office said.
Mikhalok was found guilty of inciting social hatred and insulting Aliaksandr Lukashenka (Part 1 of Article 130 and Part 1 of Article 368 of the Criminal Code).
According to the prosecutor’s office, the criminal case against Mikhalok is based on publications posted on the social media accounts of his Brutto project in 2021 and 2022.
“In 2021–2022, the defendant intentionally used public internet platforms under his control, including the ‘BRUTTO NOSTRA’ YouTube channel, the ‘Brutto’ community on Facebook and the ‘brutto_nostra’ Instagram account, to publish videos containing a negative assessment of the President of the Republic of Belarus expressed in indecent language, including profanity.
In addition, in March 2022, using the same public internet platforms as well as the ‘BRUTTO NOSTRA’ community on the VKontakte social network, the defendant created and published a video containing a negative assessment of a group of people united by their professional affiliation, namely law enforcement officers and military personnel. According to its content, the video was aimed at inciting and fomenting other forms of social hostility and hatred on the basis of social affiliation toward a social group defined by its professional affiliation,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Based on the description, part of the charges relates to videos Mikhalok recorded during the first weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
