Belarusian Journalist’s Family Says He’s Still Waiting For His Release From Jail

Andrey Kuznechyk was sen­tenced on Novem­ber 26 after a tri­al in which he refused to accept the guilty ver­dict. He was being held in Min­sk’s noto­ri­ous Akrestsi­na deten­tion cen­ter, many inmates of which have said they were tor­tured there.

His rel­a­tives said on Decem­ber 6 that they had still not been informed of his release. Belaru­sian author­i­ties have yet to com­ment on the sit­u­a­tion.

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

The men, who did not show 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, who did not give a rea­son for his deten­tion.

Over the week­end, anoth­er Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist, Paval Belavus, was not released from jail, although his 15-day jail term end­ed on Decem­ber 4.

Belavus was found guilty of tak­ing part in an unsanc­tioned ral­ly and sen­tenced on Novem­ber 19. He was also held in the Akrestsi­na deten­tion cen­ter.

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

Many West­ern nations have since refused to rec­og­nize Lukashen­ka as the legit­i­mate leader of Belarus, leav­ing him 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 on the day of Kuznechyk’s cap­ture.

«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.»

Repressions against journalists in Belarus, 2021 (chart)