Imprisoned journalist Kiryl Pazniak hospitalized in serious condition

The jour­nal­ist became ill on the way to his first court hear­ing, which was sched­uled for May 14 at Min­sk City Court.

Kiryl Paz­ni­ak and his daugh­ter Yan­i­na Paz­ni­ak are charged with cre­at­ing an extrem­ist for­ma­tion or par­tic­i­pat­ing in it and dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus.

Kiryl Paz­ni­ak. Screen­shot from video

“Jour­nal­ist Kiryl Paz­ni­ak is in seri­ous con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal at Remand Cen­ter No. 1. With com­pli­ca­tions from pneu­mo­nia and COVID-19, which he caught at the Min­sk Tem­po­rary Deten­tion Facil­i­ty eight months ago. The right to health pro­tec­tion is a basic human right. I ask those who have the pow­er to do every­thing to save a human life!” wrote the journalist’s ex-wife Ale­na Pakala on Face­book.

“He felt unwell right in the vehi­cle trans­port­ing him and his daugh­ter Yan­i­na to court. He faint­ed. As far as I know, this has been hap­pen­ing to him very often late­ly. I doubt he receives prop­er treat­ment in pre-tri­al deten­tion. They couldn’t diag­nose him for a long time. Now, accord­ing to my infor­ma­tion, his lungs are fail­ing, and he’s breath­ing with dif­fi­cul­ty,” Ale­na Pakala told BAJ.

The tri­al of Kiryl and Yan­i­na Paz­ni­ak has been post­poned indef­i­nite­ly.

Background

Secu­ri­ty forces detained Kiryl and Yan­i­na Paz­ni­ak on Sep­tem­ber 3, 2025.

The next day, Sep­tem­ber 4, the YouTube chan­nel Plat­for­ma 375 was declared an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion,” and Kiryl Paz­ni­ak was named as con­nect­ed to this resource.

Ini­tial­ly, they were charged with cre­at­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion,” and lat­er the author­i­ties added charges relat­ed to “dis­cred­it­ing” Belarus. The com­bined accu­sa­tions car­ry penal­ties rang­ing from restric­tion of lib­er­ty to sev­er­al years of impris­on­ment, with the most seri­ous charge pro­vid­ing for up to sev­en years in prison.

The YouTube chan­nel Plat­for­ma 375 was reg­is­tered in April 2021. In 2021–2022, the chan­nel host­ed sev­er­al debates between pro-gov­ern­ment pro­pa­gan­dists and their oppo­nents who were forced to leave the coun­try. The last broad­cast took place on Decem­ber 3, 2022, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Ryhor Azaron­ak (CTV), Yury Tser­akh (SB. Belarus Segod­nya) in Min­sk, as well as Aleh Taler­chyk (co-founder of the orga­ni­za­tion of for­mer secu­ri­ty offi­cers ByPol) and Dzia­n­is Dudzin­s­ki (TV host, show­man) in War­saw.

On Sep­tem­ber 17, 2025, the human rights com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized jour­nal­ist Kiryl Paz­ni­ak as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er. On Jan­u­ary 23, 2026, the journalist’s daugh­ter Yan­i­na Paz­ni­ak received the same sta­tus.