BT featured the politically imprisoned journalist from «Radio Svaboda» Andrei Kuznechyk

The ONT TV chan­nel announced a new pro­pa­gan­da film «about employ­ees of Amer­i­can media». The trail­er includ­ed footage of the impris­oned jour­nal­ist Andrei Kuznechyk, not­ed Nasha Niva.

Screen­shot: Nasha Niva

The pub­li­ca­tion sug­gests that for the record­ing of the jour­nal­ist, he was trans­port­ed from the penal colony to the KGB deten­tion cen­ter.

Andrei Kuznechyk was arrest­ed on Novem­ber 25, 2021. A search was con­duct­ed at his apart­ment, and access to the jour­nal­ist’s equip­ment was gained. Andrei left an open let­ter for his friend to be pub­lished in case of his arrest:
 «I have lived for Belarus since I was 13, entered the Fac­ul­ty of Philol­o­gy for it, lived and worked with it in mind, and now, in my 40s, it’s not about start­ing over too late, it’s about not want­i­ng to devi­ate from the path of work­ing for Belarus. In the cur­rent con­di­tions, it seems less painful to serve a fab­ri­cat­ed prison sen­tence than to be sep­a­rat­ed from my home­land for an uncer­tain (even until death) time (although I may be trag­i­cal­ly wrong about how far the repres­sion could go here)».

After his arrest, Andrei Kuznechyk was tried twice on admin­is­tra­tive charges, but he nev­er left prison after serv­ing his sen­tences. On Decem­ber 23, 2021, Andrei’s fam­i­ly was informed that a crim­i­nal case had been opened against him, and he was trans­ferred to the KGB deten­tion cen­ter on Val­adarska­ha Street.

Half a year lat­er, the free­lance jour­nal­ist was con­vict­ed under Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code — «Cre­ation of an extrem­ist for­ma­tion, or par­tic­i­pa­tion in it.» Judge Ihar Shvedau of the Mahil­iou Region­al Court sen­tenced him to six years in a high-secu­ri­ty prison.