Belarusian-speaking lecturer at Medical University sentenced for "facilitating extremism"

Aliaksei Sasnouski. Photo: bsmu.by

The man graduated from Belarusian State Medical University in 2018, and the following year defended his master's thesis in medical sciences. Later he continued his studies as a postgraduate student at his alma mater.

Since the end of 2022, Sasnouski worked as an assistant at the Department of Radiation Medicine and Ecology of BSMU, became the author of 20 published works and was writing his PhD thesis on radon in the air as a radiation risk factor for health.

Concurrently, the man worked as a tutor, preparing schoolchildren for centralized testing and olympiads in chemistry and biology. His page on the professional website is in Belarusian, and he even offered students a special 10% discount for teaching in Belarusian. Sasnouski has several dozen reviews — all positive. And his students achieved good scores.

Recently, the man was sentenced in the Minsk City Court for "facilitating extremist activity" (Part 1, Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code). The verdict is home chemistry (restriction of freedom without confinement), but the circumstances of the case are unknown.

The authorities in Belarus consider subscriptions to independent channels, media, the presence of links to them on social networks, or the presence of Belarusian national, pre-Lukashenka symbols on social networks or items to be "extremism." "Extremism" also includes practically any criticism of the authorities, official historical narratives, or expressions of solidarity with Ukraine. Many recent criminal cases under the article on "facilitating extremism" were related to the "Hayun case."

"Belarusian Hayun" is an OSINT monitoring project that was created in 2022 when Russia invaded Ukraine through Belarus. The project tracked the military activity of Russian and Belarusian troops, relying on information from Belarusians. Its activities were coordinated by a group of activists led by Anton Matolka.

The "Hayun case" began after security forces detained an activist who had been living underground in Belarus for several years. In her mobile phone, they found a link to join the Hayun bot, which she had been sent at the very beginning of the project's existence. The fatal mistake was that the link was permanent. And so, the security forces were able to connect to the bot and extract all information from it. They obtained messages from accounts that wrote to the bot, as well as their IDs and usernames.

Immediately after the hack, the founder of "Hayun," Anton Matolka, explained how the information leak occurred and announced the closure of the project.

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