Ihar Karnei’s sentence: 3 years in prison and $6,000 fine

Free­lance jour­nal­ist Ihar Karnei has been sen­tenced to three years in prison by Judge Siarhei Kat­sar of the Min­sk City Court. He was found guilty of par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist group.

Ihar Karnei. Cred­it: RFE/RL Belarus

The tri­al began on March 19, with the sec­ond ses­sion held the fol­low­ing day, and the ver­dict announced on March 22.

Diplo­mats from the Euro­pean Union, Aus­tria, the Nether­lands, Slo­va­kia, Swe­den, Ger­many, Poland, and the UK showed sol­i­dar­i­ty with Karnei and oth­er Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists impris­oned for their pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties on the first day of the tri­al. State media react­ed imme­di­ate­ly, pub­lish­ing arti­cles that humil­i­at­ed both the accused and for­eign diplo­mat­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The rea­son for the journalist’s deten­tion was not offi­cial­ly announced until the begin­ning of the tri­al. Belarus Segod­nya report­ed that Ihar Karnei was charged with a crim­i­nal case for coop­er­at­ing with the pub­lic orga­ni­za­tion Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists. The Supreme Court, at the request of the Min­istry of Jus­tice, revoked the legal sta­tus of the human rights jour­nal­ist orga­ni­za­tion in 2021. In ear­ly 2023, the KGB rec­og­nized it as an ‘extrem­ist for­ma­tion.’

Igor Kar­ney in court. March 19, 2024. Screen­shot of the STV video

The jour­nal­ist was arrest­ed on 17 July 2023 after a search of his apart­ment. Dur­ing the search, law enforce­ment offi­cials seized a com­put­er and oth­er dig­i­tal devices.

Ihar Karnei has been work­ing in jour­nal­ism since his stu­dent years. In the late 1980s, he co-found­ed an inde­pen­dent youth news­pa­per Lid­er in Orsha with friends and like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als. He also con­tributed to Znamya Yunos­ti, Kras­naya Sme­na, and Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da news­pa­pers. From 1991, he worked at Zvyaz­da news­pa­per. Between 1994 and 2000, he served as a cor­re­spon­dent for the week­ly Svo­bod­nye Novosti. In 2000, he joined RFE/RL Belarus office. Recent­ly, he has been work­ing as a free­lance jour­nal­ist.

Ihar Karnei was also arrest­ed dur­ing a peace­ful march in Min­sk on 15 Novem­ber 2020 and sen­tenced to 10 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion.