21-year-old Aviation Academy cadet sentenced for Hayun case

Vadzim Kuznyatsou. Photo: bsaa.by

Vadzim Kuznyatsou was born in 2004 in Brest. After school, he entered the Belarusian State Aviation Academy — an elite educational institution with high passing scores.

During his studies in the capital, Vadzim was an active student, participating in the cadet media center.

Recently, his criminal prosecution became known. The Brest Regional Court sentenced 21-year-old Vadzim under parts 1 and 2 of Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code of Belarus (facilitation of extremist activity). It seems the prosecution is related to the Hayun case.

The young man was sentenced to home "chemistry" (restricted freedom).

The Belarusian authorities consider "extremism" to be 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. "Extremism" also includes almost any criticism of the authorities, official historical narratives, or expressions of solidarity with Ukraine. Many recent criminal cases under the article on "facilitation of extremism" were related to the "Hayun case."

"Belarusian Hayun" is an OSINT monitoring project 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 lived underground in Belarus for several years. A link to join the Hayun bot, which she had been sent at the very beginning of the project's existence, was found on her mobile phone. The fatal error was that the link was permanent. Therefore, the security forces were able to connect to the bot and download all information from it. They obtained messages from accounts that wrote to the bot, as well as their IDs and usernames.

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

According to calculations by the association of security forces "Belpol" and human rights defenders, the names of 9594 people who fell under politically motivated criminal cases are known. In total, various political repressions (criminal cases, administrative cases, dismissals, searches) affected about 500 thousand Belarusians. Several hundred thousand people were forced to leave the country.

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