human rights defender
Valeryia Kastsiuhova
Actions and Campaigns
Organization affiliation
- Nashe Mneniye (Our Opinion)
HRD's year of birth
1967
HRD's Gender
Woman
Type of HRD
- Academic
HRD's thematic area of engagement
- Economic, social and cultural rights
HRD's geographical origin
Urban
Current Status
Pardoned
HRD's bio and work
Valeryia Kastsiuhova is a political scientist, an analyst, the founder and editor of the Nashe Mneniye (Our Opinion) expert community website, the Belarusian Yearbook editor and author, and the head of the Belarus in Focus monitoring experts group.
Detained since
Jun 30, 2021
Date of release
Mar 20, 2026
Charge(s)
- Other
- Subversion
Sentence
10 years
Latitude: 52.43
Longitude: 30.94
Geolocation of detention
Country or area of detention
Region of detention
- Europe: Eastern Europe
Location of detention - City/Town
Homieĺ
Location of detention - Facility
Penal colony No. 4. 246035, Homieĺ, vulica Antoshkina 4
Recent case update / evolution
On March 19, 2026, John Coale, the United States Special Envoy to Belarus, visited Minsk. Following negotiations, Aliaksandr Lukashenka pardoned 250 political prisoners, releasing 235 in Belarus and forcibly transferring 15 to Lithuania. Among those released in Belarus was Valeryia Kastsiuhova.
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