Journalist Dzyanis Ivashyn charged with treason. He faces up to 15 years in prison

Pun­ish­ment under Art. 356 of the Crim­i­nal Code pro­vides for impris­on­ment for a term of sev­en to fif­teen years. Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, a media man­ag­er and jour­nal­ist, is charged under the same arti­cle.

Dzya­nis Ivashyn, a jour­nal­ist from Hrod­na, has been in prison since March 12, 2021. A pro-gov­ern­ment Telegram chan­nel report­ed last week that the jour­nal­ist’s charges had been reclas­si­fied on Octo­ber 25 and he is now being charged with trea­son.

The jour­nal­ist’s wife Vol­ha Ivashy­na received a response to her request to the State Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee. The let­ter says that Dzya­nis Ivashyn is a sus­pect under Arti­cles 365 and 356 of the Crim­i­nal Code. The «trea­son» arti­cle implies the pun­ish­ment for up to 15 years in prison.

Let­ters seem to not reach Dzya­nis, the last let­ter addressed to the fam­i­ly was received more than a month ago.

Dzya­nis Ivashyn’s moth­er is retired, his wife Vol­ha has been unable to find a job for a long time, so friends and acquain­tances of the polit­i­cal pris­on­er jour­nal­ist orga­nized some sup­port for the fam­i­ly.

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Dzya­nis Ivashyn is 42 years old, he is mar­ried. He is an econ­o­mist and polit­i­cal sci­en­tist by edu­ca­tion. He worked as a jour­nal­ist for the inde­pen­dent news­pa­per Novy Chas and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty Inform­Na­palm which stud­ies the impact of Russ­ian aggres­sion on oth­er coun­tries. He is known for his pub­li­ca­tions about the scan­dalous con­struc­tion in Kura­p­aty, for which he and the news­pa­per Novy Chas were sued by the devel­op­er, as well as about the influ­ence of the «Russ­ian world» on Belarus and Syr­ia.

Ivashyn has Ukrain­ian roots and the sta­tus of a for­eign Ukrain­ian. Dur­ing the search of his house, they were look­ing for books and oth­er things relat­ed to Ukraine. The Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of Ukraine react­ed to his deten­tion and stat­ed that jour­nal­is­tic activ­i­ty could not be a rea­son for per­se­cu­tion.