Six journalists sentenced in one week as Belarus tightens media stranglehold. BAJ calls for maximum international attention

In recent days, sev­er­al jour­nal­ists in Belarus have been sen­tenced to impris­on­ment. The ver­dicts in cas­es against jour­nal­ists are shock­ing: 9, 12, and 14 years in prison.

Con­vict­ed Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists. Col­lage: BAJ

On Feb­ru­ary 26, for­mer heads of the inde­pen­dent region­al pub­li­ca­tion Intex-Press, Uladz­imir Yanuke­vich and Andrei Pakalen­ka, were found guilty of alleged “high trea­son” and sen­tenced to 14 and 12 years in prison. Today it became known that jour­nal­ist Pavel Dabravol­s­ki was sen­tenced to 9 years in prison on a sim­i­lar charge. Dur­ing these same days, renowned musi­cian and radio host Aleh Khamen­ka was sen­tenced to 3 years for coop­er­at­ing with media. Jour­nal­ist Tsi­na Palyn­skaya and her daugh­ter Marhary­ta Rabi­novich were also sen­tenced to 2 years each.

This is hap­pen­ing against a back­drop of cross-bor­der repres­sion, where author­i­ties per­se­cute jour­nal­ists who were forced to leave Belarus (tri­als in absen­tia, asset seizures, repres­sion against rel­a­tives), and con­tra­dicts the pur­port­ed improve­ment in the human rights sit­u­a­tion in Belarus in con­nec­tion with the release of promi­nent polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists con­demns the inten­si­fi­ca­tion of repres­sion against jour­nal­ists. BAJ calls on the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to increase atten­tion to Belarus and demand that Min­sk imme­di­ate­ly stop the repres­sion and release all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

Accord­ing to BAJ data, 28 media rep­re­sen­ta­tives are cur­rent­ly held in the regime’s pris­ons in Belarus.