Human rights defender Anastasia Vasilchuk from the Belarusian Center Viasna told Espreso about the situation.Those detained are being charged under Article 361-4 — “facilitating extremist activity.”“Under this article, people may face different sentences — imprisonment in a penal colony or so-called ‘home chemistry’ — restricted freedom, with or without assignment to an open-type correctional facility. The verdicts vary depending on who was detained and how many episodes there are, for example, how many times a person contacted the bot — once, twice, or more,” Vasilchuk explained.She noted that most arrests began in the spring and continue to this day, with no sign of the crackdown easing.“Most of the people we know of are still in pre-trial detention awaiting court hearings. Some trials have begun. We know that detainees from Minsk are being transferred to regional courts, where most Hajun-related cases are now being tried. The sentences vary, but generally people are getting several years in prison or ‘chemistry’, sometimes both. For example, in Mahiliou one person was sentenced to four years in prison,” she said.According to Vasilchuk, since spring there has been no access to Belarus’s public court database, which previously allowed monitoring of politically motivated cases. As a result, human rights defenders can only estimate the number of prosecutions indirectly.“So far, we have information on 88 confirmed cases related to Belarusian Hajun, but we understand the real number is much higher — likely dozens or even hundreds of criminal cases across the country. Only later will we be able to assess the true scale,” she emphasized.Why Belarusians are being persecutedThe human rights defender explained that hundreds of Telegram channels and chats in Belarus have been designated “extremist formations.” These include nearly all independent media outlets — and even the Viasna human rights center itself.“It makes no difference whether it’s Belarusian Hajun, Viasna, or a major media outlet — anyone who interacted with us is under the same threat. This is a clear violation of human rights, particularly the right to collect and share information. People are being arrested simply for photographing military equipment or aircraft movements — and sending these images not only to Hajun but also to independent media,” Vasilchuk said.If correspondence with such organizations or initiatives is found during arrest, a person can face charges not only for contact with Hajun but for any communication with independent groups — a situation Vasilchuk described as “catastrophic.”Reaction of Belarusian societyWhen asked how Belarusians are responding to the new wave of repression, she said:“That’s more a question for sociologists, but overall people are deeply intimidated. Over the past five years, they’ve grown used to living in an atmosphere of fear and repression. Consciously or not, they’re trying to protect their psyche.”Many people have stopped following independent news and are isolating themselves from information.“People treat this as routine. They’re exhausted and constantly afraid — and the authorities know it and exploit it,” she explained.According to her, the regime’s current goal is to create an illusion of stability for the international community.“Negotiations are ongoing with the U.S. and other sides, and the authorities want to show that everything is calm in Belarus. That’s why public court databases are closed, and access to open information is increasingly limited. Even propaganda channels have stopped posting about detentions. Now there’s silence — we learn about arrests only from our own sources. The official picture is that ‘everything is fine,’” Vasilchuk said.At Viasna, this policy is described as “silent repression” or “quiet terror.”BackgroundBelarusian Hajun is a monitoring project tracking the military activities of Russian and Belarusian forces — including Russian drones entering Belarusian airspace, equipment transfers, and fortification building. The project has been declared an “extremist organization” by the Belarusian authorities.The Telegram group was created just before Russia’s full-scale invasion. During the first two months of the war, the team worked around the clock. In February and March 2022, the project had around 1,500 active contributors daily. As of February 25, 2023, the channel had over half a million subscribers.On February 5, 2025, the project reported that an unauthorized breach had exposed chats with its bot used for collecting user reports. As a result, contributors who sent information through the bot became vulnerable to identification. On February 7, the first arrest connected to the leak was reported — an employee of the Mozyr Oil Refinery. That same day, Belarusian Hajun suspended operations.The project was named after Hajun, a mythical forest spirit from Belarusian folklore.