Palina Zyl: from provincial vlogger to political prisoner

On Sep­tem­ber 5, 2025, the name of Mazyr-based vlog­ger Pali­na Zyl was added to the List of Indi­vid­u­als Involved in Extrem­ist Activ­i­ty on the web­site of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs of Belarus. The site also reports that her ver­dict has entered into force, and the con­vict­ed vlog­ger is serv­ing her sen­tence.

Pali­na Zyl. Pho­to: VKon­tak­te

At the begin­ning of July, it became known that the Cen­tral Dis­trict Court of Min­sk sen­tenced Pali­na Zyl to one year in prison. The vlog­ger was charged with orga­niz­ing, prepar­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in actions that con­sti­tute a severe breach of pub­lic order – a pop­u­lar charge among dis­si­dents.

A vlogger who spoke on behalf of the people

Pali­na Zyl is a vlog­ger and activist from Mazyr who sup­port­ed the protests in 2020. After serv­ing time in admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion, she seemed to retreat into the shad­ows, but she did not leave Belarus. Her main plat­form became the YouTube chan­nel Obrat­ny Otschet (“Count­down”). There she addressed Belaru­sians as a “local” provin­cial woman who sees injus­tice and seeks a way to over­come it.

On June 17, 2020, Pali­na pub­lished a video call­ing for a sol­i­dar­i­ty flash mob:

“We are peace­ful and law-abid­ing peo­ple. Applause and bang­ing on pots are legal actions. Let’s open our win­dows every day at 7 p.m. and show how many of us there are. We are Euro­peans, too. We want a nor­mal life.”

This appeal turned into a uni­fy­ing moment for Belaru­sians and was lat­er tak­en up by hun­dreds of peo­ple in cities through­out the coun­try.

The power of vloggers in a country without free media

In an inter­view Pali­na lat­er gave, she described the phe­nom­e­non of vlog­gers in Belarus pre­cise­ly:

“Tele­vi­sion has long become just an apart­ment dec­o­ra­tion.

Var­i­ous YouTube chan­nels exist­ed before, but now they have become much more pop­u­lar, because even elder­ly peo­ple can go online. I know many peo­ple over 60 who get ner­vous when they can’t access the Char­ter 97 web­site dur­ing a block­ade, and who get angry when their inter­net con­nec­tion dis­ap­pears.

Today tele­vi­sion is no longer a cure-all; you sim­ply can’t find real infor­ma­tion there.”

Repression and prison

After the women’s protest march on Sep­tem­ber 5, 2020, Pali­na, togeth­er with anoth­er activist, Anas­ta­sia Kiryk, was detained by secu­ri­ty forces and spent 12 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion in a prison in Zhodz­i­na.

Her road to the 2025 sen­tence fol­lowed the same pat­tern: per­se­cu­tion linked to protest activ­i­ties, repeat­ed deten­tions, and intru­sions into her per­son­al life. Media report­ed that togeth­er with her part­ner, Mak­sim Shukanau, she had been placed on a want­ed list. The cou­ple remained in the coun­try, but after the arrest of Maksim’s father and his need for med­ical care, they were detained in Min­sk.

On Feb­ru­ary 10, 2025, it became known that Pali­na had been placed in cus­tody.