Tatsiana Pytsko prosecuted for helping her husband, videographer Viachaslau Lazarau

Tat­siana Pyt­sko was arrest­ed on 6 June. A few days lat­er, she was charged under Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code (cre­at­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion).

The rea­sons for the arrest became known after Tat­siana’s case was brought before the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee. The inves­ti­ga­tors were inter­est­ed in who filmed Viachaslau Laza­rau, who ini­ti­at­ed the film­ing and who com­mis­sioned the video mate­r­i­al. The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee found the cam­era­man’s archive, which was stored on his com­put­ers and cell phone. They also found video footage with Tat­siana Pyt­sko. Accord­ing to the inves­ti­ga­tion, she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the activ­i­ties of an extrem­ist for­ma­tion.

Her hus­band, Viachaslau Laza­rau, was charged under Arti­cle 361–4 of the Crim­i­nal Code (pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties) for asso­ci­a­tion with a non-state media out­let rec­og­nized as an extrem­ist for­ma­tion in Belarus.

Viachaslau Laza­rau, a free­lance video­g­ra­ph­er, was detained on 9 Feb­ru­ary this year. Secu­ri­ty forces searched his home and seized his office equip­ment. He has been detained ever since.

Human rights activists believe that the per­se­cu­tion of his wife is an addi­tion­al fac­tor putting pres­sure on the detainee.

On March 28, the human rights com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized the free­lance cam­era­man from Vit­seb­sk as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er. On June 21, Tat­siana Pyt­sko received the same sta­tus.

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