Trade union newsletter editor sentenced to 8 years in prison

The tri­al was held in cam­era, so most details are unknown. At the last hear­ing on 5 Jan­u­ary, Judge Ale­na Pap­ko­va pro­nounced the final ver­dict:

— Vasil Beras­niou, chair­man of the Belaru­sian Radio and Elec­tron­ic Indus­try Work­ers’ Union – 9 years of impris­on­ment.

— Henadz Fia­dyn­ich, for­mer head of the trade union asso­ci­a­tion – 9 years of impris­on­ment.

— Vat­slau Aresh­ka, REP trade union bul­letin edi­tor – 8 years of impris­on­ment.

The trade union activists were charged with encour­ag­ing sanc­tions, incit­ing social hatred, and estab­lish­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion.

Last July the Supreme Court liq­ui­dat­ed the Belaru­sian Radio and Elec­tron­ic Indus­try Work­ers’ Union, pre­vi­ous­ly rec­og­nized as an “extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion” by the State Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee. The Belaru­sian Inde­pen­dent Trade Union, the Free Trade Union of Belarus, the Free Trade Union of Met­al Work­ers, and the Belaru­sian Con­gress of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Trade Union faced the same sit­u­a­tion.

Vat­slau Aresh­ka was main­ly engaged in cul­tur­al projects and ini­tia­tives of trade unions. As a jour­nal­ist and his­to­ry researcher, he pub­lished in the Spad­chy­na, Arche, and PAR­Ti­san jour­nals, and edit­ed the Vyto­ki dig­i­tal archive. More­over, he was an activist of the “Experts in defense of Kura­p­aty” cam­paign and ini­tia­tor of the “Kura­p­aty Book of Hon­or” in mem­o­ry of vic­tims of repres­sion who were exe­cut­ed by the state in 1937–1941.