Pavel Seviarynets

Pavel Seviarynets, oppo­si­tion politi­cian, writer, BAJ mem­ber.

Pavel Seviarynets is an oppo­si­tion politi­cian and a co-founder of the Belaru­sian Chris­t­ian Democ­ra­cy par­ty. He was arrest­ed on June 7, 2020. After that, he was sen­tenced to at least three terms of deten­tion, 15 days each, for par­tic­i­pat­ing in elec­tion pick­ets and calls to par­tic­i­pate in mass events.

After 75 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion, Pavel Seviarynets was not released, but trans­ferred to remand prison #1 (in Min­sk) and lat­er charged under Arti­cle 293 of the Crim­i­nal Code (‘Orga­ni­za­tion of mass riots’).

On May 25, 2021, in the Mahil­ioŭ Region­al Court, Judge Iry­na Lan­cha­va sen­tenced Pavel Seviarynets to 7 years of impris­on­ment in a medi­um-secu­ri­ty penal colony. Six more polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were con­vict­ed along with him: Dzmit­ry Kazlou, Iry­na Shchas­naya, Yauhen Afna­hel, Pavel Yukhnevich, Mak­sim Viniars­ki and Andrei Voinich. The tri­al began on May 12 and was held behind closed doors, since, as they explained in court, “the case file belongs to a secret pro­tect­ed by law”. On the first day of the tri­al, two jour­nal­ists were detained near the court and arrest­ed for sev­er­al days. The polit­i­cal pris­on­ers were accused of prepar­ing to par­tic­i­pate in mass riots under Part 1 of Arti­cle 13 (‘Prepar­ing for crime’) and Part 2 of Arti­cle 293 (‘Par­tic­i­pa­tion in riots’) of the Crim­i­nal Code.

In April 2022, the admin­is­tra­tion of penal colony #17 in Škloŭ (Mahil­ioŭ region) rec­og­nized Pavel Seviarynets as a “mali­cious vio­la­tor of the inter­nal reg­u­la­tions”. They reduced the allowed num­ber of phone calls and mon­ey trans­fers for him. In June 2022, Pavel Seviarynets told his fam­i­ly that he had also been deprived of their long vis­it.

A for­mer pris­on­er told that some pris­on­ers once com­plained to the admin­is­tra­tion that Pavel Seviarynets was gath­er­ing Belaru­sian lan­guage cir­cles of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in the church. After that, police­men began shad­ow­ing the polit­i­cal pris­on­ers dur­ing the church ser­vices. In the sum­mer of 2022, all pris­on­ers were for­bid­den to com­mu­ni­cate with Pavel Seviarynets who always spoke Belaru­sian.

On June 21, 2023, a new tri­al was held in Škloŭ (Mahil­ioŭ region) to change the pun­ish­ment lev­el for Pavel Seviarynets. Judge Ali­ak­san­dr Tarakanau ruled to trans­fer the politi­cian to a prison regime for three years.

On July 10, 2023, it became known that Pavel Seviarynets was trans­ferred from penal colony #17 in Škloŭ (Mahil­ioŭ region) to Prison #1 in Hrod­na.