Anatol Vaitsiakhouski, who returned to Belarus from Poland, has been added to the list of “persons involved in terrorist activities” maintained by Belarus’s State Security Committee (KGB).
In the 1990s, Vaitsiakhouski founded one of the first private newspapers in Baranavichy, “Shah.” In the 2000s, he went into business. In April 2023, he was detained over comments posted online. He later was evacuated to Poland with the assistance of BYSOL.
In March last year, Vaitsiakhouski and another activist, Uladzimir Usser, with whom he shared an apartment in Białystok, appeared in the Belarusian state television propaganda film “Alien Sky,” in which Belarusians spoke about the difficulties of life in exile. It later emerged that they had been deceived into participating.
In November 2025, Usser was detained by Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW). He was charged with acting on behalf of a foreign intelligence service against Poland. Because of his health condition, he was not placed in pretrial detention. He was initially treated in hospital and later stayed in a shelter in Białystok. He died in early December.
After Usser’s death, Vaitsiakhouski stopped showing up for work as a taxi driver, deleted his Telegram profile and switched off his phone. He later unexpectedly resurfaced in Belarus and appeared in a state propaganda video.
He was tried on four politically motivated charges:
- Part 3 of Article 361 of the Criminal Code — “calling for sanctions”;
- Part 2 of Article 367 of the Criminal Code — “defaming Lukashenka”;
- Part 2 of Article 368 of the Criminal Code — “insulting Lukashenka”;
- Part 1 of Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code — “facilitating extremist activity.”
As reported by Nasha Niva, the minimum sentence under those charges was four years in a penal colony. However, Vaitsiakhouski was sentenced to restricted freedom without being sent to a correctional institution.
He had previously been added to the Interior Ministry’s list of “extremists.”
The “terrorist” list now contains 1,471 names, 719 of whom are Belarusians.
Accusations of extremism and terrorism in Belarus are widely used against opponents of the authorities and dissent more broadly.
