Human rights defenders call to release BelaPAN employees

State­ment by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty

August 19, 2021

On August 28, 2021, law enforce­ment offi­cers searched the Min­sk office of the Bela­PAN news agency and the homes of its key employ­ees. BelaPAN’s web­sites belapan.by and belapan.com were inac­ces­si­ble for users, both in Belarus and abroad.

After the raids, a num­ber of jour­nal­ists and employ­ees were detained for ques­tion­ing, after which they were forced to sign non-dis­clo­sure agree­ments. The search­es and inter­ro­ga­tions were con­duct­ed as part of a crim­i­nal case under Art. 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code (orga­ni­za­tion or prepa­ra­tion of actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order, or par­tic­i­pa­tion in them).

It was lat­er report­ed that BelaPAN’s direc­tor Iry­na Leushy­na, for­mer direc­tor Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau, and accoun­tant Kat­siary­na Boye­va were remand­ed in cus­tody.

We, the under­signed orga­ni­za­tions, believe that these actions against the staff of the Bela­PAN news agency are a con­tin­u­a­tion of the tar­get­ed pol­i­cy of the author­i­ties to lim­it the dis­sem­i­na­tion of uncen­sored infor­ma­tion in the coun­try and a con­tin­u­a­tion of the attack on free­dom of speech. After the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, dozens of socio-polit­i­cal and media sites were blocked in Belarus, a num­ber of print media were forced to stop pub­lish­ing, and numer­ous jour­nal­ists and media work­ers in Belarus were impris­oned.

Giv­en these cir­cum­stances, we con­clude that the actu­al grounds for the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Iry­na Leushy­na, Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau and Kat­siary­na Boye­va ​​are polit­i­cal motives aimed at ter­mi­nat­ing or chang­ing the nature of their pub­lic joint activ­i­ties for legit­i­mate pur­pos­es pur­sued as part of the news agency Bela­PAN with an objec­tive of exer­cis­ing free­dom of expres­sion and dis­sem­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion.

Based on this, guid­ed by para­graphs 2.1, 3.1 of the Guide­lines on the Def­i­n­i­tion of Polit­i­cal Pris­on­ers, adopt­ed at the III Belaru­sian Human Rights Forum, we, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions, declare Iry­na Leushy­na, Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau and Kat­siary­na Boye­va to be ​​polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and call to:

• imme­di­ate­ly release Iry­na Leushy­na, Dzmit­ry Navazhy­lau and Kat­siary­na Boye­va ​​from cus­tody;

• refrain from using meth­ods of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion as an instru­ment of pres­sure on free­dom of expres­sion;

• imme­di­ate­ly put an end to repres­sion and release all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

Human Rights Cen­ter «Vias­na»

Legal Ini­tia­tive

Lawtrend

Barys Zvozskau Belaru­sian Human Rights House

Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee

Belaru­sian Doc­u­men­ta­tion Cen­ter

PEN Belarus

Iden­ti­ty and Law