Convicted vlogger Dzmitry Kazlou re-imprisoned for disobeying prison authorities

The founder of the YouTube chan­nel Sery Kot, Dzmit­ry Kazlou, was due to be released on 28 Novem­ber from Babru­jsk prison, where he has been serv­ing a 4.5 year sen­tence. How­ev­er, on 29 Novem­ber he was retried in the Babru­jsk City and Dis­trict Court. Dzmit­ry Kazlou was accused of per­sis­tent dis­obe­di­ence to the demands of the prison admin­is­tra­tion.

Dzmit­ry Kazlou. Pho­to: RFE/RL Belarus

It is not yet known what Judge Pavel Kartsinin, who heard the case on 29 Novem­ber, has decid­ed. But the vlog­ger, Dzmit­ry Kazlou, who had ful­ly served the pre­vi­ous sen­tence, was nev­er released.

Under this arti­cle of the Crim­i­nal Code, he could face up to two years in prison.

Accord­ing to the BAJ lawyer, it is prob­lem­at­ic to recall cas­es in which a «polit­i­cal» defen­dant was acquit­ted of charges under Arti­cle 411.

«Except that in 2017 the pub­lic activist Andrei Ban­daren­ka was acquit­ted. It was quite unex­pect­ed at the time. Usu­al­ly they give the max­i­mum sen­tence. We can also recall the case of the last sen­tence giv­en to Pali­na Sharen­da-Pana­siuk, who was charged under Part 2 of Arti­cle 411 of the Crim­i­nal Code. The court sen­tenced her to 1 year in prison, although the max­i­mum sen­tence could have been 2 years. But now the pros­e­cu­tor is appeal­ing the court’s deci­sion, prob­a­bly on the grounds of its ‘inad­e­qua­cy’,» he says.

The lawyer also points out anoth­er detail: Arti­cle 411 of the Penal Code applies to peo­ple who have been placed in a secure hous­ing unit, spe­cial ward or soli­tary con­fine­ment for one year, or who have been trans­ferred to a high secu­ri­ty prison. From this it can be con­clud­ed that the insti­tu­tion reg­is­tered Dzmit­ry Kazlou as a «vio­la­tor of prison rules,” but there is no pre­cise infor­ma­tion on the rea­sons for this.

The case of Dzmitry Kazlou

On May 25, 2021, Iry­na Lan­cha­va, the judge at the Mahilou Region­al Court, ruled that Dzmit­ry Kazlou, along with six oth­er activists from the Euro­pean Belarus move­ment, were con­vict­ed of plan­ning to take part in mass riots.

Before the tri­al, the vlog­ger spent almost a year in pre-tri­al deten­tion. He was arrest­ed on June 10, 2020, and ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to 20 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion, but was nev­er released. In July 2020, the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized Dzmit­ry Kazlou as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

In addi­tion, start­ing in 2019, Dzmit­ry was giv­en 120 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion for stream­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in var­i­ous street actions. On his YouTube chan­nel, Seryi Kot, the vlog­ger dis­cussed Belaru­sian oppo­si­tion politi­cians and events in the country’s polit­i­cal life.

Dzmit­ry Kazlou is 36 and grew up in Baran, near Orsha. He lost both his par­ents ear­ly on. He spent four years at the Hor­ki Agri­cul­tur­al Acad­e­my, where he got his agron­o­mist degree. He start­ed vlog­ging in 2017, cov­er­ing local issues in the Orsha dis­trict but then moved on to pol­i­tics.

Dzmit­ry does not have a fam­i­ly, his par­ents died long ago.