Belarusian journalist Dzianis Ivashyn denied phone calls for four months

Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist and polit­i­cal pris­on­er Dzia­n­is Ivashyn has been unable to make phone calls to his fam­i­ly for the past four months, accord­ing to his wife, Vol­ha Ivashy­na. The jour­nal­ist, cur­rent­ly held in Prison No. 8 in Zhodz­i­na, last con­tact­ed his rel­a­tives on Novem­ber 12, 2023.

Dzia­n­is Ivashyn. Pho­to: Vol­ha Ivashyna’s social media

In a post on a Telegram chan­nel ded­i­cat­ed to Ivashyn, his wife expressed con­cerns over the ongo­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion restric­tions. “Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this month, too, we have not received a phone call from Dzia­n­is. The block­ade of our only direct means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with him con­tin­ues, and nei­ther we nor Dzia­n­is him­self know the rea­son,” Vol­ha wrote.

Ivashyn, clas­si­fied as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er, is enti­tled to one phone call per month. How­ev­er, since Decem­ber, he has been denied this right with­out expla­na­tion. Vol­ha pre­vi­ous­ly sug­gest­ed that author­i­ties delib­er­ate­ly cut off her husband’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion and that he is unable to report the rea­sons behind it.

Despite the restric­tions, Ivashyn con­tin­ues to send let­ters to his fam­i­ly, reas­sur­ing them about his well-being. Accord­ing to Vol­ha, he spends much of his time in prison read­ing. He some­times pur­chas­es books inde­pen­dent­ly but pri­mar­i­ly relies on the prison library.

Background on Dzianis Ivashyn’s Case

Ivashyn, a jour­nal­ist from Hrod­na, was arrest­ed by KGB offi­cers on March 12, 2021. He was lat­er con­vict­ed on Sep­tem­ber 14, 2022, by the Hrod­na Region­al Court on charges of high trea­son and ille­gal col­lec­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of pri­vate infor­ma­tion.

Judge Valer Ramanous­ki sen­tenced him to 13 years and 1 month in prison and imposed a fine of 4,800 Belaru­sian rubles ($1,920). Addi­tion­al­ly, he was ordered to pay a total of 22,800 Belaru­sian rubles ($9,120) in moral dam­ages to nine law enforce­ment offi­cers.

In June 2023, author­i­ties trans­ferred him to a high-secu­ri­ty prison. His fam­i­ly and lawyer were not informed about this deci­sion until after the trans­fer had tak­en place.

Before his arrest, Ivashyn worked as a cor­re­spon­dent for the inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian news­pa­per Novy Chas and served as the Belaru­sian edi­tor for Inform­Na­palm, an inter­na­tion­al inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism com­mu­ni­ty. He was known for his exposés on polit­i­cal­ly sen­si­tive top­ics, includ­ing the con­tro­ver­sial con­struc­tion of a restau­rant near Kurapaty—a memo­r­i­al site for vic­tims of Stal­in-era executions—and for­mer Ukrain­ian SWAT offi­cers who, after the 2014 Euro­maid­an rev­o­lu­tion, joined Belarus’s riot police.

Observers believe that his inves­tiga­tive work on law enforce­ment offi­cers was the cat­a­lyst for his arrest. Ivashyn was detained just one day after giv­ing an inter­view on the top­ic to the inde­pen­dent news out­let Cur­rent Time.