Convicted journalist Iryna Slaunikava’s vision deteriorated

Accord­ing to Ali­ak­san­dr, Iryna’s cor­re­spon­dence is restrict­ed to her imme­di­ate fam­i­ly. In her let­ters, Iry­na seems hap­py with her life in the pen­i­ten­tiary – as much as she can in such con­di­tions.

Ear­li­er, Ali­ak­san­dr Loi­ka came up with an ini­tia­tive of broad nego­ti­a­tions for the release of Belaru­sian polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. He says that the process is under­way, but the case requires “extreme cau­tion.”

The jour­nal­ist and her hus­band Ali­ak­san­dr Loi­ka were detained in late Octo­ber 2021 at the Nation­al Air­port, when return­ing from a vaca­tion. Ali­ak­san­dr was released after 45 days, while Iry­na was charged with sev­er­al crimes relat­ed to her jour­nal­is­tic work at the Bel­sat TV chan­nel. On 3 August 2022, she was sen­tenced to five years of impris­on­ment for the orga­ni­za­tion and prepa­ra­tion of actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order and par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion.