BAJ strongly condemns the court decision on the case of journalist Katsiaryna Barysevich and doctor Artsiom Sarokin

Jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich was sen­tenced to 6 months in prison camp, she also has to pay a fine of 100 basic units. Accord­ing to her lawyers, in view of the time she has already spent in jail, she will be released in two and a half months.

Emer­gency hos­pi­tal doc­tor Art­siom Sarokin was sen­tenced to two years impris­on­ment sus­pend­ed for one year and a fine of 50 basic units. He was released in the court­room.

The hear­ing was closed for pub­lic, wit­ness­es and lawyers signed a pledge of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty.   

Inter­na­tion­al human rights orga­ni­za­tion Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al has rec­og­nized jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich and doc­tor Art­siom Sarokin, arrest­ed for report­ing on the death of Raman Ban­daren­ka, pris­on­ers of con­science.

We con­sid­er the ver­dict as polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed, aim­ing to intim­i­date all media work­ers so they stop doing their job of report­ing on social­ly impor­tants events in the coun­try, which in fact means a ban on the pro­fes­sion.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists reit­er­ates that free­dom of expres­sion and the right to impart infor­ma­tion are guar­an­teed by the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Repub­lic of Belarus and the inter­na­tion­al legal oblig­a­tions of Belarus (in par­tic­u­lar, Arti­cle 19 of the Inter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Polit­i­cal Rights).

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists demands:

- review the judge­ment on the case of jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich and doc­tor Art­siom Sarokin

- release jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich from cus­tody;

- stop the per­se­cu­tion of jour­nal­ists and media in the coun­try.

We call on the Belaru­sian and inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to join these demands.