{"id":576614,"date":"2026-09-15T10:51:41","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T07:51:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=576614"},"modified":"2026-09-15T11:26:32","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T08:26:32","slug":"human-rights-defenders-recognize-11-people-as-political-prisoners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/human-rights-defenders-recognize-11-people-as-political-prisoners","title":{"rendered":"Human Rights Defenders Recognize 11 People as Political Prisoners"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>Belarusian human rights organizations have issued a statement recognizing another 11 people as political prisoners.<\/p>\n<p>Those recognized as political prisoners are <strong>Eduard Kurliandchyk, Ihar Pankou, Dzianis Adamin, Miraslau Bandarenka, Siarhei Zinchanka, Yauhen Rumo, Ivan Kavalchuk, Kanstantsin Kharytonenka, Yahor Satishur, Yaraslau Halouchanka<\/strong> and <strong>Uladzimir Kapuza<\/strong>. They were convicted under charges including incitement to hatred, facilitating extremist activities and others that are used in Belarus for politically motivated persecution. Some of them were also convicted of treason and terrorism.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWe once again note with concern that arbitrary charges of particularly serious crimes against the state continue to be used to suppress rights and freedoms. In particular, by charging citizens under Article 356 of the Criminal Code with \u2018treason against the state\u2019 for entirely lawful actions, the authorities are using an imperfect and excessively vague formulation of the provision and returning legal practice to the darkest days of Stalinist dictatorship.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Classifying the actions of those who protest violations of rights and freedoms and support the Ukrainian people\u2019s struggle for independence as \u2018terrorism\u2019 clearly does not correspond to what, in the view of international organizations, should be included in this concept,\u201d<\/em> the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>The human rights defenders are demanding the release of political prisoners, a review of their sentences and an end to repression.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Belarusian human rights organizations have issued a statement recognizing another 11 people as political prisoners. Those recognized as political prisoners are Eduard Kurliandchyk, Ihar Pankou, Dzianis Adamin, Miraslau Bandarenka, Siarhei Zinchanka, Yauhen Rumo, Ivan Kavalchuk, Kanstantsin Kharytonenka, Yahor Satishur, Yaraslau Halouchanka and Uladzimir Kapuza. They were convicted under charges including incitement to hatred, facilitating extremist [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":494879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/6aa9013d3ffda.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"Human Rights Defenders Recognize 11 People as Political Prisoners"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338,143127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news","category-society"],"wps_subtitle":"","permalink_manager":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}