The “Round Dance Case”
- Admin of the NAM
- Dec 2, 2025
- 3 min read
Legal qualification:
Article 7(1)(e) of the Rome Statute: Widespread or systematic deprivation of liberty.
Article 7(1)(h): Persecution of an identifiable group (protesters) on political grounds.
Article 7(1)(k): Other inhumane acts (use of the justice system for mass persecution).
T.N., 58, was the chief accountant at a small enterprise in Brest. She had spent her whole life surrounded by numbers, balances, and reports. She was far from politics, raised her grandchildren, and was preparing for retirement. But the events of August 2020 — the fraud and violence in the streets of her hometown — shook even her.
On 13 September 2020, a Sunday, she joined thousands of other Brest residents in a peaceful march. The mood was high, almost festive. People sang songs, carried flowers. When they reached the intersection of Masherov Avenue and Cosmonauts Boulevard, the crowd stopped. Spontaneously, to the sound of drums, people took each other’s hands and began to dance a round dance right on the roadway. T.N. joined in.
“It was an incredible feeling of unity,” she later recalled. “I looked at the faces around me — young and old, all smiling. Cars that had stopped honked in support. No aggression, no violence. We were simply singing and dancing. It lasted about forty minutes.”
After forty minutes, a water cannon arrived at the intersection. It began spraying people with dyed water. T.N. managed to run into a nearby courtyard. She returned home wet, frightened, but with a sense of having done the right thing. She thought it had been just an episode — the peak of her civic participation.
She was wrong. The state machine did not forgive this humiliation.
A year later, in October 2021, two men in civilian clothes came to her workplace. She, a 58-year-old woman, was arrested in front of the entire staff. She became the 84th defendant in the “round dance case.”
The investigation dragged on for months. All participants were identified using footage from city cameras and protesters’ own recordings. T.N. was shocked by the charges. She and dozens of others were accused of “gross violation of public order” (Article 342 of the Belarusian Criminal Code). According to investigators, they “acting in conspiracy” blocked traffic, causing “damage” to the city — the trolleybus company had supposedly lost 619 rubles (about $250).
The trial turned into a conveyor belt. Defendants were grouped into “batches” of 10–15 people. The judge did not look into details. The prosecutor monotonously read out the indictment, identical for all: “intentionally took part… shouted slogans… blocked traffic.”
“I tried to explain in court,” T.N. told her family. “‘Your Honor, what conspiracy? I saw 90% of these people for the first time in my life! What damage? The trolleybus drivers applauded us!’ But the judge stared past me. He didn’t even listen.”
The lawyer argued that the intersection had been blocked not by protesters but by the water cannon itself, which obstructed traffic. That the alleged damage was not proven. That peaceful assembly is guaranteed by the Constitution. All of this was ignored.
T.N. and the other defendants were allowed to speak. “I have lived an honest life,” she said, holding back tears. “I paid my taxes, raised my children. I only wanted justice for my country. I am not a criminal.”
The verdict was guilty for everyone. Because T.N. had no prior convictions and had positive character references, she received 2.5 years of “home confinement.” This meant she could not leave her home on weekends and had to be home by 7 p.m. on weekdays. She was forbidden to use a phone or the internet. Any violation — and she would be sent to a colony.
“They turned my life into a prison inside my own apartment,” she said. “They took the most peaceful, the kindest moment of the protest — a round dance — and turned it into a serious criminal offense. They did not convict us. They convicted the very idea that people can take each other’s hands.”
More than 130 people were convicted in the “round dance case.” They received real prison terms, “chemistry,” or “home chemistry.” The 619-ruble damage was divided among all of them.
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