The 51-year-old Belarusian political prisoner Dmitry Kuchuk, released from the colony the day before, said that law enforcement detained him on February 16, 2024, at the Russian embassy in Minsk, where he came with flowers and a portrait of Alexei Navalny to honor the memory of the deceased politician.
«I understood that the person died in prison. It was important for me that Belarusians, while in Belarus, still pay tribute to this person. So I made a portrait, bought white-red-white roses, and went to the Russian embassy. I saw that there was an OMON bus there, but my legs carried me», — Kuchuk said during a press conference dedicated to his release.
For attempting to approach the embassy, Kuchuk was detained and sent to 30 days of administrative arrest in the Okrestina detention center, known for its torturous conditions. During this arrest, criminal cases were initiated against the former head of the dissolved Belarusian Green Party, one of which was related to charges against national security.
Later, the court sentenced him to six years in a colony, Kuchuk served his sentence in IK-9. In March 2025, the Belarusian KGB included Dmitry Kuchuk in the list of terrorists.
The conditions in the colony where Kuchuk served his term were harsh, several times he was placed in SHIZO and PKT, he went on a hunger strike.
* Included in the list of «terrorists and extremists».