Journalist Jauhen Merkis is in detention, searches are underway in connection with his criminal case

On the same day, the home of the journalist’s friend Svi­at­lana Kast­sen­ka was also searched. The woman works at the Cen­ter for Inclu­sive Cul­ture and vol­un­teers at the Say Yes to Life orga­ni­za­tion that unites peo­ple with can­cer. The search was con­duct­ed in the case under part 1 of Art. 361 of the Crim­i­nal Code – calls for sanc­tions or oth­er actions aimed at harm­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus. The max­i­mum pun­ish­ment for this crime is six years of impris­on­ment.

On Sep­tem­ber 14, a search was also held in the apart­ment of Jauhen Merkis’ father.

Jauhen Merkis used to coop­er­ate with the Bel­sat TV chan­nel, broad­cast the ral­lies against the tax on unem­ploy­ment in 2017, and cov­ered post-elec­tions protests of 2020. He was repeat­ed­ly arrest­ed by the police, fined by the courts, and detained.

When a num­ber of inde­pen­dent mass media out­lets were rec­og­nized as extrem­ist for­ma­tions, Jauhen chose to engage in local his­to­ry activ­i­ties and received a tour guide cer­tifi­cate.

Repressions against journalists in Belarus 2022, list of colleagues in prison