Vacłaŭ AREŠKA

Editor, political scientist, and trade union activist Vacłaŭ Areška was serving an eight-year prison sentence in a medium-security penal colony in Ivacevičy, southwestern Belarus at the end of the year. He was reportedly denied appropriate medical care for his deteriorating eyesight.  

Editor of the Belarusian Radio and Electronic Industry Workers’ Union (REP)’s bulletin, Vacłaŭ Areška was arrested on 19 April 2022 alongside several independent trade union leaders, as the Belarusian authorities intensified their crackdown on civil society. On 11 April 2022, REP had been declared ‘extremist’ by the authorities and promptly banned. Areška stood accused of ‘incitement of measures of a restrictive nature (sanctions) and other actions aimed at causing harm to the national security of Belarus’’ (Article 361 of the Belarusian Criminal Code), ‘creation of an extremist group or participation in it’ (Article 361.1), and ‘incitement to racial, national or religious hatred or discord’ (Article 130). His trial opened in Minsk on 25 November 2022. He was found guilty on 5 January 2023 and sentenced to eight years in prison. The Supreme Court of Belarus upheld the verdict on 3 April 2023. Areška was added to the country’s list of ‘extremists’ on 5 May 2023. According to former prisoner Alaksandr Mancevič, who was released and forced into exile in Lithuania on 11 September 2025, Areška’s eyesight deteriorating in detention: ‘During the day, he asks: “Is there sun in the sky today?” The most terrible thing is that at night he must feel his way to the toilet in the dark. He falls, injures himself, and bleeds.’  

Born on 18 January 1955, Vacłaŭ Areška graduated from the Belarusian State Academy of Arts with a major in theatre studies. He taught at the Belarusian State Academy of Arts and translated works of the Belarusian Baroque from the Old Polish language. His texts were published in several magazines including Spadchyna, Arche and pARTisan.  

Image Credit: PEN Belarus