GUBOPiK Enforcers Vandalized Anarchist Raman Khalilau’s Apartment

His mother was recently sentenced to three years of administrative detention for politics.

GUBOPIK (the Belarusian Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption) enforcers came to the apartment of the anarchist Roman Khalilov in the Vitebsk region and his mother’s home in Polatsk. The enforcers broke the doors, vandalized the apartments and filmed the results.

It is published by the telegram channel associated with the GUBOPiK. Recall that the anarchist himself left Belarus in 2019. His mother was sentenced to three years of administrative detention. Human rights activists recognized her as a political prisoner.

The security services mockingly call their rubric "Housing Issue". They changed the chronology of events and first showed Khalilau's ruined apartment. The video shows that the enforcers threw all the things on the floor, broke down the furniture doors, and turned over the sofa. And at the end, they showed footage of what the apartment looked like before they arrived. And they said that they allegedly "cleaned up".

Before showing the destruction of the apartment, GUBOPiK published intimate footage of the man, from which it becomes clear that, most likely, a hidden camera was installed in his apartment (even before his departure).

Recall that Raman Khalilau was forced to leave Belarus in 2019. He went to Ukraine, then to Poland, where he became an IT tester. In early October 2021, security services opened more than a dozen criminal cases for the creation of the Revolutionary Action group (in which Khalilau was also a member). The process was closed, the materials of criminal cases took 16 volumes, and the consideration lasted four months.

Ten people were in the dock: Aliaksandr Frantskevich (17 years in prison), Akihiro Haeuski-Khanada (16 years), Marfa Rabkova (15 years), Aliaksei Halouka (12 years), Pavel Shpetny, Mikita Dranets, Aliaksandr Kazlianka and Andrei Chepiuk (all three — six years), Andrei Marach and Daniil Chul (five years each).

Raman was not tried at that time, since there were no courts in absentia (special proceedings) in the country.

In October 2021, another criminal case was opened against Khalilau — under Part 3 of Article 130 of the Criminal Code (Actions aimed at inciting social hatred and discord on the grounds of other social affiliation).

On November 26, 2021, enforcers detained Khalilau's mother Haiane Akhtiyan. A video of the search with the inscription "Parents in Charge of Their Children" appeared on one of the Telegram channels. On the video, the mother of the anarchist, stands on her knees, and at the end of the video, she appears in a "repentant" look that is already traditional for detainees. First, the woman was detained for 10 days of administrative arrest for disobedience, and then a criminal case was opened under Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code (Organization and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or active participation in them).

In the Frunzensky District Court of Minsk, she was sentenced to three years of administrative detention. Judge Alena Busheva found her guilty under Part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code (Active participation in actions that grossly violate public order). After almost four and a half months in SIZO-1, the woman was released in the courtroom before being sent to a correctional facility.