Belarusian Journalist Jailed For 10 Days Amid Ongoing Media Crackdown

Andrey Kuznechyk’s rel­a­tives told RFE/RL on Novem­ber 30 that they had learned the jour­nal­ist had been hand­ed a 10-day jail term four days before. Accord­ing to the rel­a­tives, Kuznechyk refused to accept the guilty ver­dict and was cur­rent­ly being held in Min­sk’s noto­ri­ous Akrestsi­na deten­tion cen­ter, where many inmates have said they were tor­tured.

Kuznechyk went out for a bike ride on Novem­ber 25 before return­ing accom­pa­nied by four men in plain­clothes, accord­ing to his wife, Alesya Rak.

The four men, who did not present any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, then searched their apart­ment, Rak said, only avoid­ing the rooms of their two young chil­dren.

Kuznechyk was then led away by the group of four, who did not give any rea­son for his deten­tion.

Ten­sions have been run­ning high in Belarus since Lukashen­ka, in pow­er since 1994, was declared the win­ner of a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in August 2020 that oppo­nents and the West say was rigged.

Many West­ern gov­ern­ments have since refused to rec­og­nize Lukashen­ka as the legit­i­mate leader of Belarus, leav­ing the Belaru­sian strong­man more reliant than ever on Rus­sia, which ana­lysts say is using his weak­ened posi­tion to strength­en its hold over its small­er neigh­bor.

Tens of thou­sands of peo­ple have been detained, and human rights activists say more than 800 peo­ple are now in jail as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

Inde­pen­dent media and oppo­si­tion social media chan­nels have been tar­get­ed as well.

«The regime of Alyak­san­dr Lukashen­ka con­tin­ues its effort to crush all inde­pen­dent media in Belarus,» RFE/RL Pres­i­dent Jamie Fly said the day of Kuznechyk’s deten­tion.

«Andrey was kid­napped by agents of the regime for noth­ing more than being a jour­nal­ist. The regime also tar­get­ed one of our social media accounts, attempt­ing to cut off more chan­nels of infor­ma­tion for the Belaru­sian peo­ple. Andrey should be released imme­di­ate­ly and allowed to return to his wife and young chil­dren. He has com­mit­ted no crime.»