Andrei Tolchyn accused of harming Belarus’ national security

The crim­i­nal arti­cle out­lines cer­tain actions as crim­i­nal offens­es, includ­ing pub­licly call­ing for the over­throw of the gov­ern­ment by force or vio­lent means, com­mit­ting acts of ter­ror­ism or sab­o­tage, and car­ry­ing out actions that aim to harm nation­al secu­ri­ty or shar­ing con­tent that con­tain such calls. The pun­ish­ment for these acts can result in a max­i­mum sen­tence of six years impris­on­ment. If it is proven that these actions were com­mit­ted using the inter­net or mass media, pun­ish­ment may be more severe, result­ing in impris­on­ment for four to twelve years.

In late Sep­tem­ber, law enforce­ment author­i­ties arrest­ed Andrei Tolchyn, 63, and placed him in a pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter. The fol­low­ing day, inves­ti­ga­tors searched Andrei’s home, where he lived with his wife. Com­put­er equip­ment and oth­er dig­i­tal media were seized dur­ing the search. Tolchyn’s wife was told that the search was part of the extrem­ism inves­ti­ga­tion. Tolchyn was then moved to pre-tri­al deten­tion.

Andrei Tolchyn became a promi­nent fig­ure in the demo­c­ra­t­ic com­mu­ni­ty of Homel dur­ing the 1990s when Belarus was gain­ing inde­pen­dence. He worked as a ser­vice engi­neer at the radio fac­to­ry Pra­men and took part in the inde­pen­dent trade union move­ment, cam­paign­ing for the safe­guard­ing of work­ers’ rights. Andrei was elect­ed as a deputy of the Homel City Coun­cil. This coun­cil, one of two in Belarus, pub­licly opposed the com­mu­nist coup in Moscow and cel­e­brat­ed the Repub­lic of Belarus’s procla­ma­tion of inde­pen­dence in August 1991.

Andrei worked in the Pub­lic and Media Rela­tions Com­mit­tee dur­ing his tenure in the Coun­cil. He was a mem­ber of the Unit­ed Civ­il Par­ty, which has been dis­solved by the author­i­ties. He used to lead the party’s city orga­ni­za­tion for a long time and over­saw the oper­a­tions of char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tions that pro­mote democ­ra­cy. He was inter­mit­tent­ly unem­ployed.

After the 2010 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, Tolchyn col­lab­o­rat­ed with inde­pen­dent media out­lets as a video­g­ra­ph­er and was fined sev­er­al times and even admin­is­tra­tive­ly detained. In 2020, Tolchyn got arrest­ed along with jour­nal­ist Larysa Shchyrako­va while doc­u­ment­ing demon­stra­tions, under the alle­ga­tion of involve­ment in mass riots.

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