Mozyr human rights defender and Chernobyl disaster liquidator Vladimir Telepun was detained on 17 April 2026. He is believed to be held in the temporary detention facility (IVS) of the Mozyr district police department (ROVD). The exact reasons and legal basis for his detention are still being clarified.

Chronology of pressure

December 2021 — According to Zerkalo, searches were conducted at his dacha and apartment. Wider reporting at the time also covered raids against human rights defenders in that period.

6 September 2022 — Ten days’ arrest for a link on Facebook to the human rights site Paleskaya Viasna (Paleskaya Spring). An ambulance was called at the court hearing: the rights defender had missed taking his blood-pressure medication; security officers refused to pass on medication brought by relatives. Before the end of the term, three new administrative reports were drawn up; another search was carried out at his home; he was released on 1 October 2022.

16 November 2023 — Another detention; in Nasha Niva’s reporting, the motive is linked to preventing him from attending an appointment with a judge of the Constitutional Court at the Mozyr district executive committee. After three days he was released from the IVS without a trial.

January 2025 — According to Nasha Niva, 15 days’ arrest under part 2 of article 19.11 of the Administrative Offences Code (“dissemination of extremist information”); it was reported that he spent his 73rd birthday in the IVS.

Key facts of his work

Human rights work: He is part of the region’s human rights community and has repeatedly spoken out in defence of civil rights.

Defence of the “Rainbow” centre (2019): He actively supported families raising children with disabilities in the fight to keep the “Rainbow” (Raduga) rehabilitation centre in Mozyr open, as the authorities had sought to curtail its work.