Freedom of speech locked up: How many Belarusian media workers are now behind bars?
More than three dozen Belarusian journalists are currently behind bars, as well as a number of bloggers and people linked to journalism. This article was written on 19 May 2021, but it is being constantly updated, because media workers continue to be arrested in our country.
In Belarus, the number of journalists, victims of harassment, has increased 4.5 times for the past year. In 2020, there were seven arrested media workers, while now there are 32. To put that in context, there are more imprisoned journalists in China (50 persons), but China’s population is 155 times as that of Belarus.
TUT.BY case
The following persons are known to have been detained as part of the criminal case opened against TUTBY Media company:
- Maryna Zolatava, TUT.BY editor-in-chief, taken to the detention centre on Valadarski Street;
- Alena Talkachova, a TUT.BY journalist, taken to the detention centre on Valadarski Street;;
- Lyudmila Chekina, TUTBY Media director general, taken to the detention centre on Valadarski Street.
On May 18, Nasha Niva journalist Darya Burakina and Onliner.by journalist Alyaksandr Charnukha were detained near the TUT.by office in Minsk, but then released. The police raided the homes of detainees Zolatava and Talkachova, as well as those of TUT.BY editors Hanna Rudzenka, Volha Saukiv, Maksim Hayko. Dzmitry Heranin, director of Av.by, a Belarusian portal reporting about cars and vehicles, was questioned and released under a non-disclosure agreement. Artsyom Mayorau, a journalist at the newspaper Belarusians and Market, was taken to the detention centre on Akrestsin Street; then he was sentenced to 15 days of arrest.
Since May 18, TUT.by portal, one of the most popular media outlets in Belarus, has been blocked by the authorities.
In October 2021, the Belarusian Investigative Committee opened another criminal case against TUTBY Media employees and others. Details of the case have not been provided.
Previous cases
- Ihar Losik, a blogger (‘My Country Belarus’) and RFE/RL consultant, was arrested on 25 June 2020. He was accused of ‘participating in mass riots’ and ‘organising actions that grossly violate public order’ and sentenced to 15(!) years in a medium security penal colony. Behind bars, he went on a hunger strike twice;
- Katsyaryna Andreyeva, a Belsat TV journalist. She was detained on 15 November 2020 and later sentenced to 2 years in prison for broadcasting live a violent dispersal of a rally in memory of murdered protester Raman Bandarenka and the destruction of a national memorial in the so called Square of Change by security forces. You can now send letters for Katsyaryna Andreyeva to the following address: 246003 Homiel, 1A Knizhnaya Street, SIZO #3.
- Darya Chultsova, a Belsat TV journalist. She was detained on 15 November 2020 and later sentenced to 2 years in prison for broadcasting live a violent dispersal of a rally in memory of murdered protester Raman Bandarenka and the destruction of a national memorial in the so called Square of Change by security forces;
- Kseniya Lutskina, a former reporter at state-run TV station Belarus-2 and a member of the opposition Coordination Council, was detained on December 22 as part of the so called Press Club case; now she is in pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 in Minsk;
- Andrey Alyaksandrau, a journalist and media manager, was detained on January 12 together with his girlfriend Iryna Zlobina as part of the By_Help case. Now they are in pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 in Minsk;
- Dzyanis Ivashyn, a journalist contributing to Novy Chas and InformNapalm, was detained on March, 12 and charged with ‘interference in a police officer’s activity’, now he is in prison Nr 1 in Hrodna;
- Andrzej Poczobut, a journalist at the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, was detained on March 25 as part of the case initiated against the Union of Poles in Belarus. Now he is being held in remand prison Nr 8;
- Raman Pratasevich, a former editor-in-chief of protest-linked Telegram channels and an editor of My Country Belarus channel. he was arrested in Minsk in the wake of the forced landing of a Ryanair passenger plane flying from Athens to Vilnius. The grounding operation seems to have been deliberately planned and performed by pro-Lukashenka secret services. Since June 25, he has been under house arrest.
- Alyaksandr Ivulin, a journalist at Tribuna.com and a football player of FC Krumkachy, was detained on June 3 in his apartment and sentenced to 30 days in jail for allegedly showing a white-red-white flag in his window. He was not released even after serving the term. Now he is a suspect under Art. 342 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (‘mass riots’), he is being kept in pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 in Minsk. On 15 December 2021, his case was submitted to court;
- Yahor Martsinovich, editor-in-chief of Nasha Niva, was detained on July 8, he is now pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 in Minsk;
- Andrey Skurko, head of the advertising and marketing department of Nasha Niva, he is now in pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 in Minsk;
- Uladzimir Matskevich, a methodologist, philosopher, host of Belsat TV show Talk, was detained on August 4 and then transferred to pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 in Minsk;
- Iryna Leushyna, editor-in-chief of the independent news agency BelaPAN, was detained on August 18. She is a suspect in the case under Art. 342 of the Criminal Code (‘organisation of actions that grossly violate public order’), she is currently in pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 in Minsk;
- Dzmitry Navazhylau, former director of the independent news agency BelaPAN, was detained on August 18. He is a suspect in the case under Art. 342 of the Criminal Code (‘organisation of actions that grossly violate public order’), he is currently in pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 in Minsk.
- Henadz Mazheika, a journalist of the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in Belarus. He was detained on the night of October 2 as part of a criminal case under Part Art. 130-3 (‘inciting social hatred’) and Art. 369 (‘insulting a representative of authorities) of the Criminal Code. If found guilty, Mazeika may face from 5 to 12 years in prison. He is now being held in Zhodzina remand prison.
- Iryna Slaunikava, a former Belsat representative in Belarus, was detained together with her husband Alyaksandr Loyka at Minsk Airport on the night of October 30. They were sentenced to 15 days in jail each over ‘distributing materials listed as ‘extremist’ on Facebook’ and ‘possessing extremist materials on three counts: in years of 2017, 2018 and 2019 for the purpose of their demonstration’ (in fact, what is meant here is the Facebook links to articles). On November 26, Iryna Slaunikava became a suspect under Article 342 of the Criminal Code (‘organisation and preparation of actions that grossly violate public order or active participation in them’); she was transferred to pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 in Minsk.
- Valeryia Kastsyuhova, a well-known political commentator and editor of nmnby.eu, the website of the Belarusian expert community, has been behind bars since June 30. She was taken to pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 on Valadarski Street in Minsk. She is accused of ‘calls for seizing power and conspiring’;
- Andrey Kuznechyk, a freelance journalist contributing to RFE/RL. He was detained on 25 November 2021, his flat was searched. The journalist was expected to be released from the detention centre on Akrestsin Street on December 15, but he was left behind bars. So far, neither the journalist’s relatives nor his lawyer have been given information about the reasons for being held there; reportedly, a criminal case was initiated against him;
- Syarhei Satsuk, editor-in-chief of the online business daily Ezhednevnik (ej.by). On 8 December 2021, the officers of the Investigative Committee searched Syarhei’s flat and arrested him as part of the old ‘bribe’ case (Article 430 of the Criminal Code). A bit later, the journalist was taken into custody and placed in pre-trial detention centre Nr 1 on Valadarski Street in Minsk.
Syarhei Hardziyevich, a journalist of the First Region and a defendant in the criminal case opened over ‘insulting president’, spent 5 months under house arrest. He was released on December 22 under a written pledge not to leave the country.
In addition, four other members of the Belarusian Association of Journalists are imprisoned: political analyst Alyaksandr Fyaduta (arrested in the ‘coup case’); Pavel Sevyarynets, a writer and co-chairman of the Belarusian Christian Democracy party (sentenced to 7 years of imprisonment in a medium security penal colony for ‘organising mass riots’); Ramuald Ulan, a former owner of the newspaper Smarhon’s Novaya Gazeta (sentenced to 2.5 years of restriction of liberty in an open-type correction facility for ‘slander against police officers’); human rights activist Leanid Sudalenka (found guilty of ‘organising and preparing actions that grossly violate public order’ and sentenced to three years of imprisonment in a minimum security penal colony).
In 2020, Reporters Without Borders recognised Belarus as Europe’s most dangerous country for journalists again. In the period from August to December 2020, the organisation recordered 449 cases of violating freedom of speech and 368 cases of detaining journalists in Belarus. Throughout the year of 2020, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) registered 481 detentions of media workers. Since the beginning of 2021, there have been 55 detentions of journalists and a total of 109 attacks on mass media, BAJ reports.
