Journalist Alena Tsimashchuk faces trial in Brest: accused of discreditation, inciting hatred, and extremism

The sched­ule of the Brest Region­al Court for May 31 indi­cat­ed that an indi­vid­ual named Ale­na Tsi­mashchuk would be tried on three charges: dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus, incite­ment to hos­til­i­ty or dis­cord, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion.

Jour­nal­ist Ale­na Tsi­mashchuk. Pho­to: Ale­na Tsimashchuk’s Face­book page

The defendant’s name is iden­ti­cal to that of the local jour­nal­ist who worked for the state news­pa­per Brest­sky Vest­nik (found­ed by the city exec­u­tive com­mit­tee) and the TV and radio com­pa­ny “Brest.”

Pre­vi­ous­ly, Ale­na Tsi­mashchuk was a free­lancer for sev­er­al region­al pub­li­ca­tions, includ­ing Vech­erny Brest, Brest­sky Kuri­er, Brest­skaya Gaze­ta, Vir­tu­al­ny Brest, and Brest­sky Zele­ny Por­tal.

Local jour­nal­ists have con­firmed that Ale­na Tsi­mashchuk did not write polit­i­cal arti­cles dur­ing her tenure with inde­pen­dent pub­li­ca­tions. She occa­sion­al­ly con­tributed adver­tis­ing arti­cles and pieces on psy­chol­o­gy, as she holds a degree in this field.

The rea­son for the journalist’s pros­e­cu­tion is not yet known.

Judge Dzmit­ry Karasin­s­ki was appoint­ed to the case. Before his trans­fer to the Brest Region­al Court in Novem­ber 2023, Karasin­s­ki served as the head of the Stolin Dis­trict Court.