Former Media-Polesye journalist released from prison

Yauhen Nikalayevich has ful­ly served his sen­tence of one and a half years for alleged­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in the 2020 protests, although in real­i­ty, he was sim­ply per­form­ing his pro­fes­sion­al duties as a jour­nal­ist.

Yauhen Nikalayevich. Pho­to: media-polesye

The Pin­sk City and Dis­trict Court found Yauhen Nikalayevich guilty par­tic­i­pat­ing actions gross­ly vio­lat­ing pub­lic order.

In 2020, Nikalayevich, then a video cor­re­spon­dent for Media-Polesye, cov­ered the protests in Pin­sk. He was detained, beat­en, and lat­er served his sen­tence in a cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty in Ivat­se­vichy.

After his release, he con­tin­ued work­ing for the same out­let (which at the time was not des­ig­nat­ed as extrem­ist). In August and again in Novem­ber 2020, Nikalayevich was admin­is­tra­tive­ly detained by the Pin­sk police on fab­ri­cat­ed charges relat­ed to his cov­er­age of peace­ful protests.

After serv­ing his time on deten­tion, Nikalayevich left Belarus and worked abroad in a field unre­lat­ed to jour­nal­ism.

At the begin­ning of 2024, he decid­ed to return home. He was detained, sen­tenced to one and a half years in prison, and rec­og­nized as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

He has now com­plet­ed his full sen­tence and recent­ly returned home.