Belarusian RFE/RL Journalist Released From Penal Colony, Arrives In Lithuania

MINSK — RFE/RL cor­re­spon­dent Aleh Hruzdzilovich, who was sen­tenced to 18 months in prison by Belaru­sian author­i­ties for alleged­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in demon­stra­tions that he was cov­er­ing as an accred­it­ed jour­nal­ist, has been released.

Hruzdzilovich arrived in Lithua­nia on Sep­tem­ber 21 accom­pa­nied by his wife, Maryana, after he was released from a penal colony in the region of Mahi­ly­ou where he had been held since May.

RFE/RL Pres­i­dent Jamie Fly, who pre­vi­ous­ly con­demned Hruzdzilovich’s prison sen­tence as “ille­git­i­mate,” hailed the release of the jour­nal­ist, who had served as RFE/RL’s cor­re­spon­dent focused on human rights since the 1990s.

“Aleh was robbed of time he will nev­er get back with his fam­i­ly while wrong­ly impris­oned, and I am over­joyed that he will now be reunit­ed with his wife and oth­er loved ones” Fly said. “I am grate­ful to mem­bers of the inter­na­tion­al and advo­ca­cy com­mu­ni­ties for their unwa­ver­ing sup­port of Aleh’s case, but our work is not done.”

Fly not­ed that two oth­er Belaru­sians who have been impris­oned since the crack­down, RFE/RL con­sul­tant and blog­ger Ihar Losik and RFE/RL free­lance cor­re­spon­dent Andrey Kuznechyk, remain behind bars and “should also be released imme­di­ate­ly.”

A court in Min­sk sen­tenced Hruzdzilovich in ear­ly March for his pres­ence at mass protests chal­leng­ing the offi­cial results of the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Belarus that hand­ed author­i­tar­i­an ruler Alyak­san­dr Lukashen­ka a sixth term in office.

Hruzdzilovich was also ordered to pay 56,000 rubles ($16,600) in com­pen­sa­tion to the Men­sk­trans city trans­porta­tion agency, which was a plain­tiff in the case.

Men­sk­trans claimed Hruzdzilovich’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in three unsanc­tioned ral­lies cost it rev­enue. At one demon­stra­tion, Hruzdzilovich said he was work­ing as a cor­re­spon­dent with accred­i­ta­tion issued by the For­eign Min­istry, while at the oth­er two protests he was work­ing as a cor­re­spon­dent for the Nar­o­d­naya volya (Peo­ple’s will) news­pa­per.

Hruzdzilovich was arrest­ed in Decem­ber amid a harsh crack­down by Belaru­sian author­i­ties on inde­pen­dent media, rights activists, and demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions in the wake of the protests. The oppo­si­tion and the West say the vote was rigged and that oppo­si­tion can­di­date Svy­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya won the elec­tion.

Thou­sands of peo­ple have been detained by secu­ri­ty forces in the crack­down.

Repressions against journalists in Belarus 2022, list of colleagues in prison