Integrity. Strength. Yulia VIDEO

This is the sto­ry of Yulia Slut­skaya, who brought jour­nal­ists, busi­ness peo­ple, civic activists and even the state togeth­er in the Press Club and was impris­oned for it.

On April 23, 2021, the term of deten­tion was extend­ed for the third time. No inves­tiga­tive action is being car­ried out involv­ing detainees; they are sim­ply con­fined to their cells. We know from their rel­a­tives and lawyers that prison con­di­tions are harsh. There is black mold in Yuliya’s cell. Pyotr shares a cell with 22 oth­er inmates. Most let­ters sent to our col­leagues are not deliv­ered. When the weath­er was freez­ing, they did not receive parcels with warm clothes.

All detained mem­bers of the Press Club Belarus team have been recog­nised as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.
The Press Club team, decid­ed to tell about organ­i­sa­tion and what they do. For half a decade, they worked open­ly and legal­ly in Min­sk with­out any com­plaints from the author­i­ties. That was before the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. Fif­teen min­utes is not enough to describe all  Press Club’s projects, bring­ing togeth­er jour­nal­ists, ana­lysts, media pro­fes­sion­als, IT experts, NGOs, busi­ness peo­ple and the state.

Yulia Slut­skaya has done a tremen­dous amount to nur­ture pro­fes­sion­al jour­nal­ism and a com­pet­i­tive media mar­ket in Belarus.