The Belarusian dissident rock band Nizkiz and its three members have been declared extremists and sentenced to 2 1/2 years of restrictions on their freedom of movement after being convicted on criminal charges of violating public order.
The decision to sentence the musicians to restricted freedom of movement, a type of house arrest, was announced on April 12 by a judge in Minsk who opted not to send the three musicians -- Syarhey Kulsha, Alyaksandr Ilyin, and Dzmitry Khalyaukin -- to prison, the news agency Pozirk reported, citing a post by Mayday Team human rights group on Telegram.
The Crisis In Belarus
Read our coverage as Belarusian strongman Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues his brutal crackdown on NGOs, activists, and independent media following the August 2020 presidential election.
The musicians were found guilty of organizing and preparing actions that "grossly violate public order" or actively participating in them, the right group said.
In addition to the sentence, the Interior Ministry labeled the musicians extremists, which effectively means a ban on Nizkiz songs and exposes Nizkiz's fans to prosecution.
The band's song Rule became an anthem of the 2020 protests against authoritarian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who claimed victory in the presidential election that year. After the election, Lukashenka's government unleashed a brutal crackdown against the opposition and protesters, many of whom were beaten and jailed.
Ilyin, Kulsha, and Khalyaukin were arrested on January 5 and initially faced lesser charges of distribution, production, storage, and transportation of information products containing calls for extremist activities. They were tried on January 8, but the outcome of that case is unknown.
The musicians were hit later with the public-order criminal charges and transferred to the Minsk pretrial detention center. They have been behind bars since then. In February, the Vyasna human rights center declared them political prisoners.
Nizkiz, founded in 2008 in the city of Mahilyou in the east of the country, has released five studio albums and won a number of musical awards. The fourth member of the band -- guitarist Leonid Nestyaruk -- lives in Warsaw.
While Lukashenka was declared the winner of the 2020 election, the Belarusian opposition and many Western governments and organizations said the poll was rigged and opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya actually won.
Tsikhanouskaya on April 12 urged musicians around the world "to express solidarity with their Belarusian colleagues, who were convicted over the songs of freedom."
In written comments sent to the Associated Press, she said Nizkiz's songs were played during the 2020 protests.
"That's why the members of this popular band were brutally detained in their apartments and then convicted. It is yet another shameful act of the regime's revenge," she said, according to the AP.