Translator Volha Kalatskaya suspected under Article 342, again

Vol­ha Kalatskaya was arrest­ed in Jan­u­ary 2021 as a sus­pect under Arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code ( «Orga­niz­ing and prepar­ing activ­i­ties that breach pub­lic order or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in them»). Lat­er she was accused of gross mis­con­duct (Arti­cle 339 of the Crim­i­nal Code) — alleged­ly she slapped Hry­ho­ry Azaron­ak, a state STV reporter, dur­ing one of the protest actions.  Vol­ha spent a few months before the tri­al in jail.

In March 2021, her case was heard by the Frun­zen­s­ki dis­trict court of Min­sk. Azaron­ak stat­ed in court that he had not report­ed Kalatskaya to the police and did not think he had been insult­ed: «I for­got abot that right away. But the infa­mous Telegram chan­nel post­ed it for every­one to enjoy — and the enforce­ment agen­cies got their act togeth­er.

I peti­tioned for stop­ping the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion, and insist­ed on drop­ping the charges. I still think this is the right thing to do.»

As a result, Judge Ala Sku­ra­tovich pun­ished Vol­ha Kalatskaya with two years of restrict­ed free­dom served at home (sim­i­lar to pro­ba­tion).

She trans­lat­ed into Belaru­sian dozens of movies, series and books, includ­ing the works of Vir­ginia Wolfe, Ten­nessee Williams, William Gold­ing, Paul Auster, Tony Par­sons, Arthur Gold­en, and oth­ers.

PEN Amer­i­ca and the famous Cana­di­an author Mar­garet Atwood demand­ed her imme­di­ate release fol­low­ing her arrest in Jan­u­ary.

Vol­ha Kalatskaya lives in Min­sk with her 90-year-old moth­er, who needs care and assis­tance with her every­day rou­tine.

«Пад пагрозай галадоўкі дамагліся, каб на камеру выдалі сродкі ад вошаў». Перакладчыца Вольга Калацкая пра турму і свабоду