Pavel Sevyarynets

Pavel Sevyarynets is a Belarusian activist and dissident. He served as the leader of the pro-democracy organization Young Front.^[1]

On 1 June 2005, he was sentenced to three years of correctional labor after protesting the controversial referendum amending Belarus's constitution to allow President Alexander Lukashenko a third term in office. The U.S. protested the sentence, calling it a "parody of justice", and the European Union stated that "even by the standards of Belarus, this is an excessive penalty".^[2] A later amnesty reduced his sentence to one year.^[3]

Sevyarynets faced a new series of charges in 2007. In May, he was released from a prison sentence for "organizing an unsanctioned rally". In July, a court found him and fellow activist Aleksey Shein guilty of "distributing illegal literature" after they were found leaflets for a political meeting.^[4] On 19 August, Sevyarynets was arrested with other youth activists during a Brest book reading at which he discussed his three books. The group were detained for "participating in an unsanctioned meeting" and were also accused of possessing counterfeit money and Ukrainian liquor.^[1]

Sevyarynets later became a co-leader of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party.^[5] In December 2010, he was arrested again on charges related to protests against Lukashenko's disputed re-election. On 16 May 2011, he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment. Amnesty International designated him a prisoner of conscience.^[6]

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