Imprisoned vlogger Dzmitry Kazlou due to be released next week but faces a new trial

Blog­ger Dzmit­ry Kazlou, author of the YouTube chan­nel Seryi Kot, has been in prison for four and a half years. On Novem­ber 29, he was sched­uled for anoth­er tri­al on charges of “per­sis­tent dis­obe­di­ence to the prison admin­is­tra­tion.”

Vlog­ger Dzmit­ry Kazlou

On Novem­ber 29, the Babru­jsk Dis­trict and City Court will con­sid­er the crim­i­nal case against Dzmit­ry Kazlou under Arti­cle 411 of the Crim­i­nal Code (per­sis­tent dis­obe­di­ence to prison admin­is­tra­tion). In 2021, the YouTube vlog­ger was sen­tenced to 5 years in prison for par­tic­i­pa­tion in mass riots.

Dzmit­ry Kazlou has been behind bars for four and a half years.

Con­sid­er­ing the time spent in pre-tri­al deten­tion, he has served almost the entire sen­tence. He should have been released on Novem­ber 28, 2024.

How­ev­er, on Novem­ber 29, he is sched­uled for anoth­er tri­al, which will most like­ly result in an addi­tion­al sen­tence of up to two years in prison. Judge Pavel Kartsinin of the Babru­jsk Dis­trict and City Court will hear the case.

The case of Dzmitry Kazlou

On May 25, 2021, Iry­na Lan­cha­va, the judge at the Mahilou Region­al Court, ruled that Dzmit­ry Kazlou, along with six oth­er activists from the Euro­pean Belarus move­ment, were con­vict­ed of plan­ning to take part in mass riots.

Before the tri­al, the vlog­ger spent almost a year in pre-tri­al deten­tion. He was arrest­ed on June 10, 2020, and ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to 20 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion, but was nev­er released. In July 2020, the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized Dzmit­ry Kazlou as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

In addi­tion, start­ing in 2019, Dzmit­ry was giv­en 120 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion for stream­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in var­i­ous street actions. On his YouTube chan­nel, Seryi Kot, the vlog­ger dis­cussed Belaru­sian oppo­si­tion politi­cians and events in the country’s polit­i­cal life.

Dzmit­ry Kazlou is 36 and grew up in Baran, near Orsha. He lost both his par­ents ear­ly on. He spent four years at the Hor­ki Agri­cul­tur­al Acad­e­my, where he got his agron­o­mist degree. He start­ed vlog­ging in 2017, cov­er­ing local issues in the Orsha dis­trict but then moved on to pol­i­tics.