Journalist Yauhen Merkis makes shoes in prison

“Yauhen works in a shop that pro­duces boots for con­victs and police offi­cers. He’s not expe­ri­enc­ing any health prob­lems and keeps in touch with his father. (His moth­er passed away and he’s a wid­ow­er.) They dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­i­ty of him receiv­ing a care pack­age, which is allowed once every four months and is lim­it­ed to 50 kilo­grams. Phone calls aren’t allowed yet. He’s doing well and liv­ing a typ­i­cal life in his cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. Dur­ing his free time, he reads and watch­es TV. Recent­ly, some his­to­ri­an vis­it­ed the cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty to give a lec­ture.”

Yauhen Merkis is a jour­nal­ist from Homel. He used to coop­er­ate with the Bel­sat TV chan­nel, broad­cast the ral­lies against the tax on unem­ploy­ment in 2017, and cov­ered post-elec­tion protests of 2020. He was repeat­ed­ly arrest­ed by the police, fined by the courts, and detained. Over­all, Eugene was con­demned to 50 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion and $1,950 for his work as a jour­nal­ist.

On 13 Sep­tem­ber 2022, he was tak­en into cus­tody for involve­ment in extrem­ist for­ma­tions and the pro­mo­tion of extrem­ist activ­i­ty. He is serv­ing a four-year prison term, notes the human rights defend­er.

Novem­ber 8 marked Yauhen’s sec­ond birth­day cel­e­bra­tion behind bars. To show sup­port for the jour­nal­ist, you can send let­ters or post­cards to:

IK-17, 213004 Shk­lou, vul. 1‑ya Zavad­skaya, Merkis Yevge­ny Alek­san­drovich.

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