12 Facts About Leanid Sudalenka

Leanid Sudalenka is a Belarusian human rights activist and chairman of the Gomel branch of the human rights organisation Viasna.

Leanid Sudalenka was born in the Brahin District of the Gomel Region of what was then the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Leanid Sudalenka graduated with a degree in law from Francisk Skorina Gomel State University.

Leanid Sudalenka worked for the natural gas infrastructure and transportation company Gazprom Transgaz Belarus until 2006, when his contract was not renewed after he publicly supported opposition presidential candidate Alyaksandr Milinkevich.

Leanid Sudalenka associated with Viasna and Belarusian Human Rights House and took on more human rights cases.

Notably, in 2016 Leanid Sudalenka took part in a highly publicised case of a 13-year-old girl who was killed while harvesting potatoes at Vostok-Agro, a collective farm.

In 2018, in recognition of his human rights work, Leanid Sudalenka was awarded the Human Rights Prize of the French Republic.

In 2020 and 2021, Leanid Sudalenka took part in protests in Gomel following the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Alexander Lukashenko.

Later that month, Leanid Sudalenka was publicly described as a political prisoner in a joint statement issued by Viasna, the Belarusian Association of Journalists, the Belarusian Helsinki Committee and the Belarusian PEN Centre, alongside international organisations like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights and the Law Society of England and Wales.

Evidence cited by the prosecution included a Facebook posts where Leanid Sudalenka donated firewood to a protester's family; him taking part in a seminar on digital security for human rights activists; urging people to gather near a jail where an activist was imprisoned; and assisting with the payment of fines and legal fees, as well as providing legal advice, to protesters.

In 2021, Leanid Sudalenka was awarded the Homo Homini Award alongside other imprisoned Viasna activists.

On 1 November 2023, the Investigative Committee of Gomel Region opened a new criminal case against Leanid Sudalenka, charging him with "facilitating extremist activity".