In June 2022 a legal case was brought in Belarus under the criminal article 193-1 that was re-introduced in January 2022. Article 193-1 allows for criminal prosecution if ‘Illegal organisation of activity of a public association, religious organisation or foundation or participation in their activity’ occurs. It was re-introduced at the beginning of the year in the Criminal Code after a three-year break. On the basis of this legal provision the Hrodna Prosecutor’s Office reported that it had brought a criminal case against Volha Vialichka, the head of the public association “Hrodna Children’s Hospice”. This hospice was dissolved by the decision of the Hrodna Regional Court on August 20, 2021.
The grounds for the criminal prosecuted of Volha Vialichka was an examination of the CSO's website, as well as its financial operations which occurred after the court order on forced liquidation.
According to Hrodna Prosecutor’s Office, continuation of financial transactions by the “Hrodna Children’s Hospice” after its forced liquidation was the ground for criminal prosecution. This was despite the fact that these transfers were unrelated to the liquidation of the organisation. In total, the organisation is charged for 50 financial transactions in the amount of 160 000 Belarusian rubles (around 50 000 Euros).
The Prosecutor’s Office concluded that the liquidated CSO did not comply with the court decision on liquidation. As a result of the inspection, the criminal case was launched against the director of the CSO for the organisation of public association activities, in respect of which there was a valid judgement of the authorized state body on its liquidation, under Article 193-1 of the Criminal Code of Belarus possible punishments under this article are a fine, or arrest for six months, or prison for up to two years. This is the third criminal case brought against the head of the organisation. Volha Vialichka is already a suspect in the criminal case launched for participation in actions that ‘grossly violate public order’, because of which she left Belarus in 2021.
This is the first publicly known case where Article 193-1 of the Criminal Code has been applied after its re-introduction in the Criminal Code of Belarus. Earlier, when this article existed in the criminal legislation between 2006 and 2019, at least 18 people were convicted under it. Even when considering this previous practice, the Hrodna Children’s Hospice case is the first time that Article 193-1 has been applied against an organisation that earlier had registration and was forcedly deprived of its registered status by non-voluntary liquidation due to a court decision.
In 2021 and 2022, an out-and-out campaign on liquidation of CSOs has been taking place in Belarus. As of June 27, 464 CSOs are known to have been liquidated in judicial or out-of-court procedures due to the decisions of the state and 325 CSOs have voluntarily liquidated themselves. In the majority of cases this voluntary liquidation was due to the major difficulties of operating in extremely unfavourable political and legal conditions. In some cases their liquidation was directly caused by firm and continued insistence of the state authorities.