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  • Sviatlana Lupach, convicted daughter of independent journalist Dzmitry Lupach, listed as extremist

    Sviatlana Lupach’s name was included in the List of Citizens of the Republic of Belarus, Foreign Citizens, and Stateless Persons Involved in Extremist Activities on January 19th. According to the list record, Lupach was imprisoned under Article 342 of the Criminal Code for organizing or participating in actions that grossly violated public order. Last August, the human rights community recognized her as a political prisoner.

    Svi­at­lana Lupach was detained on 1 May 2023, while she was rest­ing with friends on a farm in the Hly­boka­je dis­trict. The police took sev­er­al peo­ple to the sta­tion but released all but Svi­at­lana.

    The police drew up an admin­is­tra­tive offense report after check­ing her mobile phone. She was then sen­tenced to 10 days of deten­tion for dis­trib­ut­ing extrem­ist con­tent. While Svi­at­lana was serv­ing her sen­tence, anoth­er report was filed against her, and she was fined $285.

    Svi­at­lana was not released after her ini­tial deten­tion; instead, she was charged with par­tic­i­pat­ing in actions that gross­ly vio­lat­ed pub­lic order over two pho­tos from the 2020 Min­sk protests found on her mobile phone.

    Svi­at­lana Lupach’s tri­al took place in Octo­ber of last year, and her sen­tence was hand­ed down by Judge Mikhail Yur­chanka. Her appeal was dis­missed.

    Her father and jour­nal­ist Dzmit­ry Lupach was forced to leave Belarus ear­li­er due to the threat of a crim­i­nal case. He believes that his daugh­ter is being per­se­cut­ed by law enforce­ment as revenge for his pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ty.

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