Mikalai Kazlou is a Belarusian politician and the chairman of the United Civic Party.

According to Wikipedia, he was born on January 5, 1967, in Valožyn and grew up in Niasviž. After graduating from the Novosibirsk Higher Military Combined Arms School in Russia, he served in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia and participated in the peacekeeping mission during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. After the collapse of the USSR, he returned to Belarus and joined the criminal investigation department. He worked for 17 years as a senior investigator for especially important criminal cases in the Centraĺny district of Minsk and solved hundreds of crimes over those years. He is a Reserve Lieutenant Colonel.

In 2008, while maintaining order at a polling station during the parliamentary elections, he accused the chair and the deputy chair of the precinct commission of falsification when they entered a sealed room and threw a bundle of ballots into the ballot box. Mikalai Kazlou reported the incident to his superiors, and when no one took action, he reported it to the independent press. He was asked to withdraw his report to hush up the case, but he showed integrity and soon retired.

In 2012, Mikalai Kazlou joined the United Civic Party, and in July 2016, he was elected the deputy chairman of the party. On May 4, 2021, he was deprived of the special rank of police reserve lieutenant colonel.

On August 6, 2021, Kazlou was sentenced to 3 months in prison for disclosing investigation information on the Coordination Council case. He was recognized as a political prisoner. On December 28, 2021, the verdict entered into force, and Mikalai Kazlou began serving his sentence in remand prison #6 in Baranavičy, Brest region.

After his sister met with Kazlou in January 2022, she said that he was serving his sentence in a single cell with poor conditions. Besides, during his detention, he received a reprimand from the prison administration and he was put on a professional record as "prone to extremism".

Mikalai Kazlou served his full sentence and was released on March 26, 2022.

He was arrested again on July 27, 2022. It soon became known that a criminal case was opened against him under Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code. According to Siarhei Pasko, the head of the Minsk Department of the Investigative Committee, "In August 2020, he not only actively participated in the mass atrocities on the streets of Minsk, but also actively used the citizens of Belarus for the base purposes of his curators. Mikalai Kazlou controlled the radical crowd, gave the protesters instructions, called for blocking the roads and obstructing the passage of vehicles".

The trial began on November 1, 2022. On November 3, 2022, the Pieršamajski District Court of Minsk convicted the United Civic Party leaders: Mikalai Kazlou, Aksana Aliakseyeva, and Antanina Kavaliova. Judge Anastasiya Kulik sentenced Kazlou to two and a half years imprisonment.

On November 25, 2022, Mikalai Kazlou was transferred to prison #4 in Mahilioŭ.

On January 31, 2023, the Minsk City Court considered the appeal filed by the United Civic Party leaders. Judge Zhanna Brysina upheld the verdict and dismissed the complaint.

In mid-February 2023, the political prisoner was transferred to penal colony #15 in Mahilioŭ. Immediately after the quarantine, Mikalai Kazlou was placed in a punishment cell until March 26.

In early May 2023, his mother died. Mikalai Kazlou was not released from the penal colony for the funeral.

In early July 2023, his associates informed that the political prisoner was admitted to the hospital with bronchitis.

He was released on July 22, 2024.

United Civic Party leaders sentenced to up to 30 months in jail

The Pieršamajski District Court of Minsk has finished considering the criminal case against the opposition United Civic Party leaders: Aksana Aliakseyeva, Mikalai Kazlou, and Antanina Kavaliova. Political prisoners received 12 to 30 months in jail for participating in the 2020 protests.

Who are former law enforcers persecuted for speaking out against Lukashenka

Last May Lukashenka stripped of military and special ranks more than 80 former officers of law enforcement bodies, who joined the independent association of security forces ByPOL or supported protests. Viasna collected names of former law enforcement and military officers who spoke out against Lukashenka's regime and who are persecuted by the state. Most of them are recognized as political prisoners.