Jailed Belarusian journalist Ivashyn feared back in disciplinary isolation

The journalist’s wife, Vol­ha Ivashy­na, sus­pects he has been pun­ished once again. Her sus­pi­cion is based on the fact that there has been no con­tact for a long time with Dzia­n­is, who is held in Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty No. 15 in Mahilou.

Dzia­n­is Ivashyn

“20 days with­out let­ters. Anoth­er pun­ish­ment cell?!” Ivashy­na wrote on her Face­book page on Novem­ber 1. Ear­li­er she had not­ed that the fam­i­ly also did not receive a sched­uled phone call from Dzia­n­is Ivashyn, which was sup­posed to take place on Octo­ber 23.

In his wife’s opin­ion, if Dzia­n­is has indeed been placed in a pun­ish­ment cell, it hap­pened sud­den­ly.

“There is still no news from him, but before this he not hint­ed at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of end­ing up in a pun­ish­ment cell,” Ivashy­na says.

His rel­a­tives have not ruled out that Ivashyn could be sent to a pun­ish­ment cell ever since June 18, 2026, when the jour­nal­ist was returned to the Mahilou facil­i­ty. Until then, he had spent three years in Prison No. 8 in Zhodz­i­na.

Ivashyn was orig­i­nal­ly sent to serve his sen­tence in Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty No. 15. Accord­ing to for­mer inmates, there he was beat­en, mocked for speak­ing Belaru­sian, and denied phone calls, care pack­ages, and vis­its with his par­ents, and he was put in a pun­ish­ment cell sev­er­al times. After sev­er­al months, his pun­ish­ment was made harsh­er: he was trans­ferred to a high-secu­ri­ty prison in Zhodz­i­na.

The case of Dzianis Ivashyn

Dzia­n­is Ivashyn is a cor­re­spon­dent for the inde­pen­dent Belaru­sian news­pa­per Novy Chas and a vol­un­teer edi­tor of the Belaru­sian-lan­guage ver­sion of the web­site run by Inform­Na­palm, an inter­na­tion­al inves­tiga­tive com­mu­ni­ty. The jour­nal­ist is known for his inves­ti­ga­tions into the influ­ence of the “Russ­ian world” on Belarus and Syr­ia, as well as into the con­tro­ver­sial devel­op­ment of the Kura­p­aty memo­r­i­al site near Min­sk.

Dzia­n­is Ivashyn has been impris­oned for near­ly five years, since March 12, 2021. He was ini­tial­ly charged with inter­fer­ence with the activ­i­ties of inter­nal affairs offi­cers, and author­i­ties lat­er added a charge of “high trea­son” as well.

The “last straw” for the Belaru­sian author­i­ties was like­ly his inves­ti­ga­tion into for­mer Ukrain­ian secu­ri­ty offi­cials who had tak­en jobs with the Belaru­sian riot police. The jour­nal­ist was detained lit­er­al­ly the day after he gave an inter­view about this to the inde­pen­dent TV Cur­rent Time.

BAJ project “Jour­nal­ists: Silent Mode”. Dzia­n­is Ivashyn. Sen­tenced to 13 years in prison.

On Sep­tem­ber 14, 2022, the Hrod­na Region­al Court found him guilty of trea­son and ille­gal col­lec­tion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion about pri­vate life. Judge Valer Ramanous­ki sen­tenced Ivashyn to 13 years and 1 month in prison. He was also ordered to pay a total of $9,030 in moral dam­ages to nine secu­ri­ty offi­cers.

In late June 2023, his pun­ish­ment was tight­ened: with­out noti­fy­ing his fam­i­ly or lawyer, the court trans­ferred him to a high-secu­ri­ty prison. He spent three years there, and on June 18, 2026, he was trans­ferred back to Cor­rec­tion­al Facil­i­ty No. 15