Convicted journalists Yauhen Hlushkou and Ales Sabaleuski added to list of “extremists” by Interior Ministry

On Octo­ber 11, infor­ma­tion about Mahil­iou jour­nal­ists Yauhen Hlushk­ou and Ales Sabaleus­ki, who were sen­tenced to impris­on­ment, appeared in the list of cit­i­zens “involved in extrem­ist activ­i­ties” com­piled by the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs of Belarus. Accord­ing to the doc­u­ment, they were acquit­ted of the charge of par­tic­i­pa­tion in an armed for­ma­tion. It is not­ed that both jour­nal­ists are already serv­ing their sen­tences.

Yauhen Hlushk­ou and Ales Sabaleus­ki. Col­lage: BAJ

On July 31 this year, the Mahil­iou Region­al Court found Yauhen Hlushk­ou and Ales (Ali­ak­san­dr) Sabaleus­ki guilty of par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion and par­tic­i­pa­tion in an armed for­ma­tion or armed con­flict on the ter­ri­to­ry of a for­eign state, mil­i­tary actions, recruit­ment, or prepa­ra­tion for such par­tic­i­pa­tion.

The case was reviewed by Judge Dzmit­ry Kren­zhy­jeus­ki, who imposed a four-year prison sen­tence on Ales Sabaleus­ki and a three-year sen­tence on Yauhen Hlushk­ou. Addi­tion­al­ly, both indi­vid­u­als were sub­ject to sub­stan­tial finan­cial penal­ties, amount­ing to $2,450 each.

The jour­nal­ists filed an appeal that was con­sid­ered by the Supreme Court on Sep­tem­ber 27. It is unclear whether the sen­tences and fine amount were mod­i­fied as a result of the tri­al, but the list of indi­vid­u­als “involved in com­mit­ting extrem­ist crimes” no longer includes the charge of par­tic­i­pa­tion in an armed con­flict.

The Octo­ber 11 ver­sion of this doc­u­ment states that Ales Sabaleus­ki was found guilty of cre­at­ing and par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion, and Yauhen Hlushk­ou was found to have par­tic­i­pat­ed in such a for­ma­tion.

Jour­nal­ist and blog­ger Ales Sabaleus­ki was detained on Decem­ber 12, 2023. Sabaleus­ki was ini­tial­ly sen­tenced to two peri­ods of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion. In ear­ly Jan­u­ary 2024, he was pros­e­cut­ed and trans­ferred to a remand cen­ter. Indi­vid­u­als who shared a cell with Sabaleus­ki in the tem­po­rary deten­tion cen­ter have report­ed that the jour­nal­ist had been beat­en dur­ing inter­ro­ga­tion. As a result, Sabaleuski’s body exhib­it­ed indi­ca­tions of tor­ture. He was com­pelled to pro­vide a con­fes­sion that he had col­lab­o­rat­ed with the edi­to­r­i­al staff of 6tv.by, a media enti­ty that had been des­ig­nat­ed as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» on Novem­ber 29 of the pre­vi­ous year.

Yauhen Hlushk­ou, a free­lance video­g­ra­ph­er, was tak­en into cus­tody in ear­ly Jan­u­ary 2024. Fol­low­ing his arrest, Hlushk­ou was ini­tial­ly held in a tem­po­rary deten­tion cen­ter and then trans­ferred to a remand cen­ter.  The police filmed a video with him, which was then broad­cast by a Telegram chan­nel linked to Mahil­iou police. In the video, the detainee states that he has been coop­er­at­ing with the online resource 6tv.by since 2017.

Before their arrest, nei­ther Ales Sabaleus­ki nor Yauhen Hlushk­ou had been engaged in jour­nal­ism for sev­er­al years. Sabaleus­ki was employed as the direc­tor of a con­sumer ser­vices enter­prise, while Hlushk­ou was unem­ployed.

The Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized Ales Sabaleus­ki and Yauhen Hlushk­ou as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.