Repression against anarchists and anti-fascists in Belarus in January 2022

Write an anarchist prisoner today!

from ABC Belarus

At the beginning of January it became known that Mikalai Dziadok was put in a punishment cell for three days on New Year’s Eve, and has been precautionary filed as “prone to suicide and self-mutilation” – for having cut his hands and stomach six years ago in a correctional institution. The anarchist already has seven out of ten possible preventive registrations. On 25 January the Supreme Court upheld Mikola’s sentence (five years in prison).

The defendants in the international anarchist organisation case have finished reading the materials of the case. Aliaksandr Kazlianka pointed out that only Daniil Chul testified against the others.

Some of the anarcho-partisans have been transferred to other custody facilities. Here are the new addresses:
Dmitriy Grigorievich Rezanovich
Sergei Aleksandrovich Romanov
SIZO-6, ul. Brestskaya 258, Baranovichi, 225413
Dmitry Nikolaevich Dubovski
SIZO-2, ul. Gagarina 2, Vitebsk, 210026
Igor Vladimirovich Olinevich
SIZO-1, ul Volodarskogo 2, Minsk, 220030

Anarchists Aleksandr Belov, Evgeny Rubashko and Artem Solovey were pressed with new charges – participation in the Pramen extremist formation. This article increases the maximum punishment to 6 years of imprisonment. The guys spent the whole month getting acquainted with the case.

On 11 January Brest anti-fascist Andrei Kazimirov was released from the Moscow pre-trial detention center on an undertaking to appear. The prosecutors appealed the decision.

On 26 January anti-fascists Daniil Ivanov and Daniil Marchenko were detained in Minsk. Their flat was searched. The guys were tried for disobedience to the police. Ivanov got 15 days of arrest, Marchenko – 14 days.

On 27 January the first hearing on the prison rules violation case against Mikita Yemelianau took place. During the time Mikita was in prison, more than 60 reports of prison rules violations were drawn up on him. The hearing took place inside the pre-trial detention facility, and only his parents were allowed in. Mikita refused to stand up when he talked to judge Oksana Rakitnikova, who warned him and later removed him from the courtroom. Guards testified listing the violations. The trial will continue on 11 February. Meanwhile, Yemelianau’s accomplice Ivan Komar was released from prison under the Amnesty Act. This is the first and very mysterious case when a political prisoner receives early release.

In December we received information that Aleksandr Zaytsev who stays in pre-trial detention declared his commitment to the anarchist ideas. It turned out that in 2020 Zaytsev actively participated in protests against the regime and was detained at least once in November. While serving the administrative arrest, Zaytsev met a secret service agent who incited him to set fire to an official’s dacha. Zaytsev is now charged with terrorism and faces the death penalty. Read more https://abc-belarus.org/?p=14708&lang=en

Check out our 2021 overview of repressions https://abc-belarus.org/?p=14649

There are 10 Comments

With all of these cases Putin is saying "forget peaceful protest and public activism, only armed.struggle will ever work." This is no doubt one of many reasons folks in Ukraine are preparing for a guerilla war, not a campaign of protest. If Ukranian indepemdence fighters from any group (not just the fash exploiting this mess) are executed, there is little doubt their organization will extract payment in kind and in full from expected Russian occupation forces. This has been done as long as gueriila wars have been fought. Hopefully prisoners will be liberated, which happens in many guerilla wars though storming prisons is more difficult than taking out the executioner trash well away from the prisons.

As for Ukraine being occupied, many expect it to look a lot like Iraq was for the US.Of course, the irony of that is that Ukranian cops and militaey may now have to hold classes in bombmaking, ambush, and assasination for their neighbors and hope it never gets used in a differenr context.

Inside Russia, draft resistance may get really important very fast. People organizing armed struggle there wiill need ro work in cells with and only with those they've known all their lives. All cases of FSB infiltrarion need ro be called out in articles such as this one. When.possible publish as much personal information about these thugs as possible to places Russia cannot easily get it taken down from.

What are you talking about? You should stop reading whichever hawkish media you're reading about Ukraine and Russia

It was announced today that Putin will oversee a major Russian NUCLEAR exercise in person, focussed in ICBM launch capability. Assumimg he follows through on this, nobody will be able to argue that all this activity at Russian nuclear bases and comms facilities is a false flag. To invoke nuclear weapons like this is incredibly dangerous, like reaching for a grenade in a crowded bar but on a global scale.

Well, Reagan did something even more dangerous: the unannounced 1983 "Able Archer" nuclear exercise Russia not surprisingly mistook for a live attack. Had not one Russian and one British spy worked back channel to clear that up, nuclear war would have resulted.

All that I said about Putin and Russia applies.to repressive regimes in general-they can only push so far before people put away the megaphone and pick up the gun.

A local despot usually gets more leeway than.a.foreign invader (e.g Putiin in Ukraine) but they really ought not to.

Re-read Machiavelli and the lesser known La Boétie as well. The State violence is meant to scare away those who oppose, yes, but their power is seated on how well they assert themselves as the authority to work with/for.

In the case of Putin, what all his critics are missing is his regime's role in stabilizing the country, getting most gangs on his side, rebuilding the economic infrastructure (based, indeed, on extractivism) and rebuilding its military. Now if you look at the laisser-faire capitalist mess that was the '90s in this country, you'll notice that Russia has become far safer a nicer environment for the common people who'll just submit to order and go to work every morning. Those people, the so-called "majority", either don't care or can't do much about the grievances of a minority of people that seek freedom. This is a *democratic system*, in the same way than France, Mexico, China, etc. Putin's regime is delivering on its promise of "better" social control, i.e. stability and security.

I don't agree personally with this view... just telling you about the realpolitiks of what keeps someone like Putin in charge. In Russia it was always about one tyrant or another; there's still no such thing as a republic. And there's been some tyrants who been supportive of the proles... just not necessarily those we tend to believe.

Yet the proles' interests aren't usually that of the anarchists, especially not the nihilo-individualist ones who desire to be their own sovereigns, as you know how this is really not fitting well with collectivist, workerist morals.

Anyone wanna educate me on what anarcho-partisans are? Are they an undercover group fight Alexander Lukashenko's regime or are they ideologues of some form of anarchism?

It is being reported that Putin has refused to remove Russian troops from Belarus as exercises there ended. Some have concluded this is effectively Putin conquering Belarus without firing a shot.

He must have read "The Art of War". That's good isn't it, well an improvement anyway on the usual horrific outcomes of war for innocent folk?

I want to take back this comment about Art of War, I don't think he's read it, there are people dying now over there, and I shouldn't make trollish flippant comments.

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