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

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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