Belarus convicts a well-known dissident rock band and sentences its members to correctional labor

 Belarus convicts a well-known dissident rock band and sentences its members to correctional labor


TALLINN, Estonia — Belarusian authorities on Friday convicted a well-known dissident rock band, designating the band and its three members as extremist and sentencing them to 2 years of correctional labor. It was the most recent in a yearslong crackdown on dissent that has engulfed this nation of 9.5 million individuals.

Nizkiz band members — Alyaksandr Ilyin, Siarhei Kulsha and Dzmitry Khalyaukin — have been charged with “organizing and plotting actions grossly violating public order.”

In 2020, when Belarus was rocked by mass protests that erupted after President Alexander Lukashenko gained a sixth time period in workplace in a disputed election, the band launched “Guidelines,” a music that turned the protests’ anthem. A music video for the music was filmed at one of many demonstrations in opposition to the nation’s authoritarian chief.

Lukashenko’s authorities unleashed a brutal crackdown in response to the protests, arresting greater than 35,000 individuals and violently beating hundreds. Many have been labeled as “extremists,” a designation continuously used in opposition to critics. The repressions have continued to today.

Along with the sentencing, the band and the musicians have been additionally added to the state registry of extremists, which successfully means a ban on its songs and exposes Nizkiz’s followers to prosecution.

The band was based in 2008 within the metropolis of Mogilev within the east of the nation. In January 2024, Ilyin, Kulsha and Khalyaukin have been arrested and initially confronted petty prices, however then authorities opened a prison case in opposition to them. They’ve been behind bars since then.

In February, the Viasna human rights middle declared them political prisoners. In response to the group, which is the oldest and probably the most distinguished within the nation, there are at present 1,387 political prisoners in Belarus, together with Viasna’s founder Ales Bialiatsky, who gained the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

Belarus’ opposition chief Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on Friday urged musicians world wide “to specific solidarity with their Belarusian colleagues, who have been convicted over the songs of freedom.”

“The Belarusian regime continues a ruthless assault on our tradition,” Tsikhanouskaya mentioned in written feedback despatched to The Related Press.

“Nizkiz’s songs sounded in the course of the 2020 protests,” she mentioned. “That is why the members of this in style band have been brutally detained of their residences after which convicted. It’s yet one more shameful act of the regime’s revenge.”



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