Blogger Vadimati from Hrodna released from prison

Vadz­im Yer­mashuk (Vadi­mati), a blog­ger, was released on June 29, 2024, accord­ing to Vias­na. Yer­mashuk was incar­cer­at­ed for a peri­od of three years.

Blog­ger Vadz­im Yer­mashuk. Pho­to: Social media

Vadz­im Yer­mashuk is an Insta­gram blog­ger and sales­per­son at the Korona mar­ket in Hrod­na. He pro­vid­ed sup­port to polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and attend­ed «polit­i­cal» tri­als, iden­ti­fy­ing him­self as a «peo­ple’s deputy.»

Vadz­im Yer­mashuk was arrest­ed on August 16, 2021 in Shchuchyn. Yer­mashuk was film­ing a video about the local skate park for his blog. He was sub­se­quent­ly sub­ject­ed to three admin­is­tra­tive deten­tions and then crim­i­nal­ly charged. Dur­ing this peri­od, law enforce­ment agen­cies were engaged in efforts to dis­cred­it the blog­ger, whose tri­al attract­ed numer­ous sup­port­ers to the cour­t­house.

In Decem­ber 2021, Yer­mashuk was sen­tenced to three years in prison for des­e­crat­ing state sym­bols and insult­ing the Pres­i­dent of Belarus.