Mark Izraylevich Bernstein is a blogger from Belarus who was a very active editor on the Russian Wikipedia. Using the username "Pessimist2006", he was one of the top 50 most active editors of the Russian Wikipedia from 2009 to early 2022, and he had made over 200,000 edits.
On March 11, 2022, Bernstein was arrested by police in Minsk, Belarus. He was detained after a pro-Russian Telegram channel accused him of breaking Russian censorship laws by editing Wikipedia articles about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Arrest and detention
Bernstein was first sentenced to 15 days in jail for "disobedience to police." However, he was not released after that time. Instead, he was later charged with "organizing and preparing activities that disrupt social order."
In a joint statement, seven different organizations, including the Viasna Human Rights Centre, said that Bernstein was a political prisoner. He was given a sentence of three years of "restricted freedom," which is like being on parole, and he was released from jail on June 24, 2022. He finished his sentence in January 2025.
