Journalist Aleh Supruniuk sentenced to three years in prison

Friends of the Brest jour­nal­ist report that on August 8 Aleh Suprun­yuk received a three-year prison sen­tence. He was con­vict­ed of involve­ment in an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion.” Pri­or to the ver­dict, he had spent over six months in pre-tri­al deten­tion.

Aleh Supruniuk. Cour­tesy pho­to

Accord­ing to Supruniuk’s friends, after Jan­u­ary 22 of this year he stopped answer­ing phone calls and dis­ap­peared from social media.

At first, col­leagues assumed he might have been detained and sen­tenced in an admin­is­tra­tive case. Espe­cial­ly since some­thing sim­i­lar had already hap­pened short­ly before.

On Decem­ber 12, 2024, secu­ri­ty forces searched Supruniuk’s home. They seized his com­put­er equip­ment and phone, and took him in for ques­tion­ing. After the inter­ro­ga­tion, an admin­is­tra­tive report was drawn up against him for alleged­ly dis­trib­ut­ing “extrem­ist con­tent.” The jour­nal­ist was sen­tenced to 15 days of deten­tion and released on Decem­ber 27.

When Supruniuk dis­ap­peared again after Jan­u­ary 22, this time for a longer peri­od, it became clear that he had been detained in a crim­i­nal case. For almost five months noth­ing was known about the journalist’s fate.

On June 4, 2025, the Brest Region­al Prosecutor’s Office announced that a crim­i­nal case had been sent to court under Part 3, Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code (par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion). The agency did not name the accused, only stat­ing that no lat­er than Octo­ber 2023 the man had joined the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, which had been declared an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion” by a KGB rul­ing on Feb­ru­ary 28, 2023. Accord­ing to the prosecutor’s office, as a par­tic­i­pant in the “extrem­ist for­ma­tion,” he authored at least 43 arti­cles that were pub­lished online.

Aleh Suprun­yuk is a well-known jour­nal­ist in the Brest region, rec­og­nized for report­ing on social­ly and pub­licly impor­tant issues in the com­mu­ni­ty. Dur­ing his career, he worked for the news­pa­per Brest­sky Kuri­er, the online out­let Per­shy Rehi­jon, and col­lab­o­rat­ed with oth­er inde­pen­dent pub­li­ca­tions.

Supruniuk will turn 58 in Sep­tem­ber. He has a dis­abil­i­ty, and there are con­cerns that his health could dete­ri­o­rate sig­nif­i­cant­ly behind bars.