Danila Hancharou
lighting designer, released
Former prisoner
Date of birth: 27 September 1991
Date of detention: 15 March 2021
Charges indicted:
- Art. 342 of the Criminal Code — Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them
Sentence: 2 years
Penalty: imprisonment in a general-security penal colony
Date of release: 25 December 2022
Judge: Dzmitryi Karsiuk
Prosecutor: Tsimafei Nichyparuk
Groups: Cultural workers
Cases: Protests in Minsk
Statement on the status of a political prisoner
Godparent: Daria Gosek-Popiołek, Member of the Polish Sejm
Danila Hancharou is a lighting designer earlier employed at the New Drama Theater. He was fired for joining a strike.
Policemen searched Danila's apartment on March 15 and detained him for staging a one-person picket. He was then sentenced to 15 days in prison and expected to be released on March 30, but on March 26, Hancharou was brought from Žodzina to Minsk for interrogation. He was first sent to the detention center in Akrestsin Street, then transferred to the pre-trial detention center in Valadarski Street.
Hancharou was charged under Part 1 of Art. 342 of the Criminal Code, "organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order."
On July 9, 2021, the Centralny District Court of Minsk sentenced Hancharou to two years in a penal colony on charges of "participating in group acts that grossly violate public order" (part 1 of article 342 of the Criminal Code), and "complicity" in such a crime (part 6 of article 16, part 1 of article 342 UK). Judge Dzmitry Karsiuk, despite the dubiousness of the evidence and obvious errors in the case file, considered that the defendant's guilt was proven. The political prisoner served his term in full and on December 25, 2022 he was released from penal colony No. 17.
