Belarus hits exiled journalist Iryna Khalip with “extremism” charges

Belaru­sian author­i­ties have opened a crim­i­nal case against exiled jour­nal­ist Iry­na Khalip under an unspec­i­fied “extrem­ism” arti­cle, accord­ing to the jour­nal­ist.

Iry­na Khalip. Image: Screen­shot from the TOK YouTube show

Khalip, a spe­cial cor­re­spon­dent for Novaya Gaze­ta Europe, learned of the case from her par­ents in Min­sk after secu­ri­ty offi­cers searched their apart­ment on Novem­ber 27.

In a Face­book post that evening, Khalip wrote that the search war­rant indi­cat­ed the inves­ti­ga­tion was launched by the Navapolot­sk city prosecutor’s office under an extrem­ism-relat­ed charge. The spe­cif­ic arti­cle of the crim­i­nal code was not dis­closed.

Police also ques­tioned her 89-year-old moth­er, Lut­sy­na Bialzatskaya, ask­ing where Khalip was liv­ing and request­ing her phone num­ber. The jour­nal­ist has long lived out­side Belarus, and offi­cers found no per­son­al belong­ings or work mate­ri­als con­nect­ed to her at her par­ents’ home.

Com­ment­ing lat­er on the Novaya Gaze­ta Europe web­site, Khalip called the search a clear attempt at intim­i­da­tion: “This is an unmis­tak­able sig­nal: remem­ber that you have fam­i­ly in Belarus before you ‘slan­der’ our flour­ish­ing regime. Dic­ta­tor­ships around the world send exact­ly this kind of mes­sage. It’s a mis­take to claim that some­one who man­ages to flee the coun­try is beyond reach. Those who leave behind hostages in their coun­try of ori­gin remain just as vul­ner­a­ble, know­ing they can­not pro­tect their loved ones.”

Iry­na Khalip is a promi­nent Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist and the wife of oppo­si­tion politi­cian and for­mer diplo­mat Andrei San­nikau.