CPJ: Belarusian authorities should immediately release journalists Uladzimir Yanukevich and Andrei Pakalenka

Belaru­sian court sen­tences 2 jour­nal­ists to 14, 12 years in prison, heavy fines. Belaru­sian author­i­ties should imme­di­ate­ly release jour­nal­ists Uladz­imir Yanuke­vich and Andrei Pakalen­ka, and stop jail­ing jour­nal­ists for their work, said the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists. 

A court con­vict­ed jour­nal­ists Andrei Pakalen­ka, left, and Uladz­imir Yanuke­vich, right, on trea­son charges. (Pho­to: BAJ)

On Feb­ru­ary 26, a court in the south­west­ern city of Brest con­vict­ed 66-year-old Yanuke­vich and 44-year-old Pakalen­ka on trea­son charges, and sen­tenced them to 14 and 12 years’ impris­on­ment respec­tive­ly, accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), an exiled advo­ca­cy and trade group. 

Their tri­al, held behind closed doors, start­ed on Feb­ru­ary 3. There has been no expla­na­tion for the charges.

“CPJ is deeply shocked by the 14- and 12-year prison sen­tences imposed on Uladz­imir Yanuke­vich and Andrei Pakalen­ka,” said Anna Brakha, CPJ’s Europe and Cen­tral Asia senior researcher. “This ver­dict is designed to per­pet­u­ate the cli­mate of ter­ror sur­round­ing inde­pen­dent media in the coun­try. Author­i­ties should imme­di­ate­ly release Yanuke­vich and Pakalen­ka, along with all impris­oned jour­nal­ists.”

The court also fined Yanuke­vich 135,000 Belaru­sian rubles (US$47,000) and Pakalen­ka 45,000 Belaru­sian rubles (US$16,000). An addi­tion­al 200,000 rubles (US$69,100) is being sought from them as com­pen­sa­tion for alleged dam­age inflict­ed on the coun­try, accord­ing to BAJ. 

“As if depriv­ing [Yanuke­vich and Pakalen­ka] of their free­dom wasn’t enough, they’re also ruin­ing them finan­cial­ly,” a source close to the case told CPJ under con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, for fear of reprisal.

Yanuke­vich was the direc­tor and edi­tor-in-chief of Intex-Press, and Pakalen­ka, the deputy direc­tor for devel­op­ment of the shut­tered inde­pen­dent out­let. 

Belaru­sian author­i­ties have been harass­ing for­mer staffers at Intex-Press, an inde­pen­dent region­al news­pa­per cov­er­ing the west­ern city of Baranavichy, and its jour­nal­ists for years. In July 2022, Intex-Press jour­nal­ist Yury Hantsare­vich was sen­tenced to two years and six months in prison on charges of facil­i­tat­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties. After Intex-Press was stripped of its reg­is­tra­tion in 2022, Baranavichy police raid­ed Intex-Press’s office in Feb­ru­ary 2023. They seized lap­tops, com­put­ers, and a cam­era. In April 2023, a Belaru­sian court deemed Intex-Press’s web­site and social media pages “extrem­ist mate­ri­als.” 

Six of the outlet’s jour­nal­ists, includ­ing Yanuke­vich and Pakalen­ka, who had since cre­at­ed inde­pen­dent news web­site BAR24, were detained in ear­ly Decem­ber 2024. In August 2025, Natal­lia Semi­anovich, Miki­ta Pia­trous­ki, Rus­lan Ravi­a­ka, and Lud­mi­la Zelianko­va were sen­tenced to years of house arrest on charges of “pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ty.” 

CPJ emailed the Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee, the law enforce­ment agency in charge of pre­tri­al pro­ceed­ings, for com­ment on Yanuke­vich and Pakalenka’s case but did not receive a reply.

At least 28 jour­nal­ists are cur­rent­ly behind bars in Belarus.