Andrei Aliaksandrau

Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, jour­nal­ist, behind bars since 12 Jan­u­ary 2021.

Friends lost con­tact with Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, 43, on 12 Jan­u­ary 2021. Two days lat­er, it emerged that Andrei and his part­ner Iry­na Zlobi­na were arrest­ed and charged with riot­ing. The Deputy Min­is­ter of Inter­nal Affairs said that they had financed the pro­test­ers, «includ­ing by pay­ing their fines and com­pen­sat­ing deten­tion fees.» Human rights activists claimed that these were legit­i­mate char­i­ta­ble activ­i­ties.

On 30 June 2021, the jour­nal­ist was addi­tion­al­ly charged with «high trea­son.»

For his poems from behind bars, Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau won the Frantsishak Ali­akhovich Prison Lit­er­a­ture Award.

On 1 Sep­tem­ber 2022, Ali­ak­san­drau and Zlobi­na were mar­ried in Min­sk jail.

On 6 Octo­ber 2022, Min­sk Region­al Court sen­tenced Ali­ak­san­drau to 14 years of impris­on­ment on sev­er­al charges, includ­ing «instruct­ing indi­vid­u­als to par­tic­i­pate in riots» and «high trea­son.» Iry­na Zlobi­na was sen­tenced to 9 years of impris­on­ment.

Human rights activists rec­og­nized him as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

Sen­tence: 14 years of impris­on­ment (Arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code (prepa­ra­tion of or par­tic­i­pa­tion in actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order), Arti­cle 243 of the Crim­i­nal Code (tax eva­sion), Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code (estab­lish­ment of or par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion), Arti­cle 356 of the Crim­i­nal Code (high trea­son)).

Judge: Viachaslau Tulei­ka

Birth­day: 27 Jan­u­ary 1978