Mikalai Kuliashou
Prisoner
Date of detention: 4 September 2022
Charges indicted:
- Art. 361-1 of the Criminal Code — Creation of an extremist formation, or participation in it
- Art. 371 of the Criminal Code — Illegal crossing of the state border of the Republic of Belarus
- Art. 378 of the Criminal Code — Theft or destruction of personal documents
Sentence: 5 years
Penalty: imprisonment in a medium-security penal colony
Judge: Viktar Sianko
Prison: Penal colony No. 2
Groups: Activists, Law enforcement officers
Statement on the status of a political prisoner
Godparent: Juozas Olekas, is a Lithuanian member of the European Parliament
Mikalai Kuliashou was arrested on September 4, 2022. For several months he was in the KGB pre-trial detention center, and then in Pre-trial Detention Center #1 in Minsk. Later they transferred him to the pre-trial detention center in the Grodno prison.
Kuliashou is a former customs officer and an activist of the Narodnaya Hramada Belarusian Social Democratic Party. He is accused of helping to illegally cross the Belarusian-Lithuanian border (Article 371 of the Criminal Code) and of 'creation of an extremist group or participation in it' (Part 1 of Article 361 of the Criminal Code).
