As of 15 April 2025, at least 165 cultural figures, including not less than 36 writers, were not free – imprisoned or in home confinement.
Mikoła Dziadok, an activist of the anarchist movement, author of prison literature, and laureate of the Francišak Alachnovič Award, was not released as scheduled.
Writer and journalist Anatol Sanacienka was sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest.
The Ministry of Information has expanded the list of banned publications, adding 27 new titles, including world literature bestsellers from the 20th and 21st centuries. The list now includes 92 books deemed to “contain content capable of harming the national interests of the Republic of Belarus”.
The following books were labelled “extremist”: Guidebook for Belarusian Journalists by Przemysław Fenrych and Vincuk Viačorka and Belarus at the Breaking Point by Jarasłaŭ Ramančuk and Leanid Zaika.
In the Mahiloŭ penal colony, political prisoners are informally forbidden from studying Polish, Czech, Latvian, and Ukrainian languages.
I. Criminal prosecution of cultural figures, authors, and performers
On 4 April, Mikoła Dziadok, an anarchist movement activist, author of prison literature, and winner of the Francišak Alachnovič Literary Award for his 2017 book Colours of a Parallel World (written during his first imprisonment), did not walk out free after the end of his prison term. On 10 November 2021, the Minsk City Court sentenced Mikoła Dziadok under three articles of the Criminal Code (Articles 342, 361, and 295-3) to five years in a penal colony. In March 2025, it became known that Mikoła Dziadok had been transferred to the pretrial detention centre No. 1 in Kaladzičy in connection with a new criminal case.
II. Administrative persecution
On 1 April, it became known that on 28 March, police detained writer Anatol Sanacienka in Babrujsk. On 31 March, the Babrujsk District and City Court sentenced him to 15 days of administrative arrest under Article 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offences (distribution, production, storage, or transportation of informational materials containing calls for or promoting extremist activity). Anatol Sanacienka is a poet, prose writer, playwright, translator, and former regional newspaper Babrujski Kur’jer’s editor-in-chief.
III. Conditions in the places of incarceration
1. Journalist, screenwriter, and history popularizer Łarysa Ščyrakova works in a sewing workshop in a low-paid position, sewing uniforms for the internal troops—specifically for personnel at pretrial detention centres and penal colonies, human rights defenders report.
Łarysa Ščyrakova was sentenced to three years and six months in a minimum-security penal colony under Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code (facilitating extremist activity) and Article 369-1 (discrediting Belarus). She is serving her term in Women’s Correctional Colony No. 4 in Homiel, where women convicted in politically motivated cases are marked with yellow tags on their clothes.
2. Political prisoner, journalist, and poet Dzianis Ivašyn has been deprived of phone calls for four consecutive months—December, January, February, and March. He is serving his sentence in Prison No. 8 in Žodzina. The last phone call from him was on 12 November 2024.
3. In the Mahiloŭ penal colony, political prisoners are informally forbidden from studying Polish, Czech, Latvian, and Ukrainian, with the latter labelled as “the language of enemies”.
ІV. Repressions against books
1. On 1 April, the Ministry of Information updated the list of banned publications. The list now contains 92 books that “contain content that could harm the national interests of the Republic of Belarus”, according to the authorities.
27 new titles were added to the list, including:
- Let’s Talk About It: About Girls, Boys, Babies, Families, and Bodies by Robie H. Harris
- Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
- A Single Man and Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
- A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
- Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
- Lie With Me by Philippe Besson
- The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
- Sarah by J. T. LeRoy
- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
- Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
- Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami
- The Foxhole Court, The Raven King, and The King’s Men by Nora Sakavic
- Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
- The Fencer series by C. S. Pacat
- Boy Erased by Garrard Conley
- The Survivor’s Dilemma by Kristina Dvainykh
- Bear Town, Us Against You, and The Winners by Fredrik Backman
Several of the banned books have been adapted into films. For instance, Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin—a story about life in Germany before and during the rise of the Nazis—was the basis for the film Cabaret.
Among the banned works are also two books by Anne Applebaum, Gulag and Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe (1946–1956), both focused on Soviet totalitarianism.
Anne Applebaum is an American journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and researcher of communism and Eastern European history.
2. On 4 April, Minsk’s Partyzanski District Court labelled as “extremist” the following two books: Guidebook for Belarusian Journalists by Przemysław Fenrych and Vincuk Viačorka, and Belarus at the Breaking Point by Jarasłaŭ Ramančuk and Leanid Zaika.
V. Persecution of cultural figures’ relatives
On 9 April in Hrodna, security agents visited the mother of Valer Rusielik — a blogger and author of the YouTube channel Daroha, which features programs dedicated to Belarusian culture, history, and national identity. On 10 April, Valer Rusielik wrote on Facebook: “Yesterday evening, security agents came to my mother’s home in Hrodna again […] this time not in uniform but dressed in plain clothes. Once again, they asked about me: where I live, whether I plan to return, whether my mother is in contact with me, etc. What was new? They asked whether I had any tattoos or scars and how tall I was. They again recorded the personal information of my close relatives.” Valer Rusielik’s social media accounts have been designated as “extremist materials” in Belarus. He does not reside in Belarus.