Jailed belarusian RFE/RL journalist transferred to penal colony

Hruzdzilovich’s wife, Maryana, told RFE/RL on May 30 that her hus­band was sent to a penal colony in the region of Mahi­ly­ou and that it may take sev­er­al days before he reach­es the pen­i­ten­tiary.

The process of trans­fer­ring con­victs in Belarus and many oth­er for­mer Sovi­et republics, known as «etap,» involves trains specif­i­cal­ly designed for pris­on­ers. The trans­fers can take days or even weeks.

Pris­on­ers who trav­el in such trains are crowd­ed into caged com­part­ments with lit­tle fresh air, no show­ers, and only lim­it­ed access to a toi­let or food.

A court in Min­sk sen­tenced Hruzdzilovich in ear­ly March for his pres­ence at mass protests chal­leng­ing the offi­cial results of a 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion that hand­ed author­i­tar­i­an ruler Alyak­san­dr Lukashen­ka a sixth term in office.

Hruzdzilovich was also ordered to pay 56,000 rubles ($16,600) in com­pen­sa­tion to the Men­sk­trans city trans­porta­tion agency, which was a plain­tiff in the case. Men­sk­trans claimed Hruzdzilovich’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in three unsanc­tioned ral­lies cost it rev­enues.

At one demon­stra­tion, Hruzdzilovich said he was work­ing as a cor­re­spon­dent with accred­i­ta­tion issued by the For­eign Min­istry, while at the oth­er two protests he was work­ing as a cor­re­spon­dent for the Nar­o­d­naya volya (Peo­ple’s Will) news­pa­per.

Hruzdzilovich was arrest­ed in Decem­ber amid a harsh crack­down by Belaru­sian author­i­ties on inde­pen­dent media, rights activists, and demo­c­ra­t­ic insti­tu­tions in the wake of the protests.

The oppo­si­tion and West say the vote was rigged and that oppo­si­tion can­di­date Svy­at­lana Tsikhanouskaya won the elec­tion. Thou­sands of peo­ple have been detained by secu­ri­ty forces in the crack­down.

RFE/RL Pres­i­dent Jamie Fly has con­demned Hruzdzilovich’s prison sen­tence, call­ing it «ille­git­i­mate» say­ing “his only ‘crime’ was report­ing the truth to Belaru­sians who are now denied that truth by their gov­ern­ment.»

Two oth­er RFE/RL jour­nal­ists are also cur­rent­ly in Belaru­sian cus­tody.

Ihar Losik, a blog­ger and a con­sul­tant to RFE/RL, was hand­ed a 15-year prison term in Decem­ber on charges of «orga­niz­ing mass riots» and «incite­ment to social hatred,» which he has reject­ed as polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed.

A free­lance cor­re­spon­dent for RFE/RL, Andrey Kuznechyk, was arrest­ed in Novem­ber and will go on tri­al for unspec­i­fied charges on June 8.

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