Imprisoned radio host Aleh Khamenka added to extremist list

The name of Aleh Khamen­ka, sen­tenced to 3 years impris­on­ment and a sub­stan­tial fine, appeared on May 29, 2026, on the Belaru­sian Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs web­site in the list of per­sons “involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ties.” The site also notes that the cul­tur­al fig­ure is “serv­ing his sen­tence.”

Aleh Khamen­ka. Pho­to: Onlin­er

On March 4, 2026, Min­sk City Court sen­tenced Aleh Khamen­ka to three years impris­on­ment and a sub­stan­tial fine of over $7,320.

Ini­tial­ly it was report­ed that the musi­cian was found guilty of facil­i­tat­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties.

How­ev­er, accord­ing to the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs’ announce­ment adding Aleh Khamen­ka to the extrem­ist list, he was con­vict­ed of cre­at­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion. Anoth­er charge con­cerned “orga­niz­ing or prepar­ing actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order, or active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in them.” Notably, the max­i­mum penal­ty under this arti­cle is lim­it­ed to five years impris­on­ment.

On May 8, the Supreme Court reviewed Aleh Khamenka’s appeal against the ver­dict issued by the Min­sk City Court. The rul­ing hand­ed down by the country’s high­est judi­cial body remains unknown. It is pos­si­ble that the Supreme Court altered the set of charges against Khamen­ka, as it did in the case of free­lance jour­nal­ist Viachaslau Laza­rau, whose charges were reclas­si­fied in Novem­ber 2023 from “facil­i­tat­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ty” to “par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion.”

Before the appeal hear­ing, Aleh Khamen­ka was trans­ferred from the Min­sk Remand Cen­ter to a sim­i­lar facil­i­ty in Vit­seb­sk.

Background

Musi­cian, edu­ca­tor, com­pos­er, pro­duc­er, and radio host Aleh Khamen­ka is known as a pro­mot­er of Belaru­sian music through radio. He is the cre­ator of folk-mod­ern — a new direc­tion in con­tem­po­rary Belaru­sian music — and leader of the pop­u­lar band Palats (Palace).

He grad­u­at­ed from the Belaru­sian State Uni­ver­si­ty of Cul­ture. In 1992, he found­ed the band Palats, with which he record­ed six stu­dio albums. In 2008, he com­plet­ed grad­u­ate stud­ies in cul­tur­al stud­ies at the same uni­ver­si­ty and worked as a senior lec­tur­er in the Vari­ety Show Direc­tion depart­ment.

In 2008, he par­tic­i­pat­ed in the nation­al selec­tion for Euro­vi­sion with the song “Kola Hrukata­la” (The Wheel Rum­bled). In 2009, he cre­at­ed the Bela Music fes­ti­val, held at the Bar­avaya air­field. After 2020, Palats mem­bers remained in the coun­try and occa­sion­al­ly per­formed.

In the 2000s, he cre­at­ed and host­ed the pro­gram Bra­ma Isnasci (Gate of Exis­tence) on Avtora­dio, and from the late 2000s began col­lab­o­rat­ing with Radio Racy­ja. His music pro­grams Tuzin Hitoŭ (Dozen Hits) and Folk-bra­ma (Folk-gate) aired for many years until his deten­tion.

Belaru­sian Radio Racy­ja is a radio sta­tion that broad­casts 24/7 in Belaru­sian in Belarus, Poland, and Lithua­nia on FM and online. It pro­vides infor­ma­tion about socio-polit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and cul­tur­al events in Belarus and the world. The media’s news­room has been based in Białys­tok, Poland, since 1999.

Since Sep­tem­ber 2021, access to the radio station’s web­site for vis­i­tors from Belarus has been blocked by order of the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion. On Jan­u­ary 16, 2024, by deci­sion of the KGB, Belaru­sian Radio Racy­ja was des­ig­nat­ed an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion.”

Under cur­rent Belaru­sian leg­is­la­tion, per­sons rec­og­nized as par­tic­i­pants in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion can be pros­e­cut­ed for “estab­lish­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion” or “facil­i­tat­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties”. Penal­ties under these arti­cles include up to 10 years impris­on­ment.