Journalist Palina Pitkevich recognized as political prisoner

On Feb­ru­ary 27, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty issued a spe­cial state­ment rec­og­niz­ing jour­nal­ist Pali­na Pitke­vich, who was detained by Belaru­sian author­i­ties, as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

Jour­nal­ist Pali­na Pitke­vich. Pho­to: Social media

Pali­na Pitke­vich is being held in pre-tri­al deten­tion over alleged par­tic­i­pat­ing in an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion.» The jour­nal­ist faces up to six years in prison.

Her tri­al is set to begin on March 7 at the Min­sk City Court.

On June 18, 2024, the Belaru­sian KGB declared the online pub­li­ca­tion Media IQ an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion,» and secu­ri­ty forces iden­ti­fied Pali­na Pitke­vich as a par­tic­i­pant in this media project. Around the same time, she was detained.

On Feb­ru­ary 27, the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists (CPJ) called for Pitkevich’s imme­di­ate release and an end to the prac­tice of impris­on­ing media work­ers for doing their jobs.

«The deten­tion of Pali­na Pitke­vich is yet anoth­er grim reminder that Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashenka’s gov­ern­ment is the worst jail­er of jour­nal­ists in Europe and Cen­tral Asia,» said CPJ Pro­gram Direc­tor Car­los Martínez de la Ser­na on Feb­ru­ary 27 in New York. «Belaru­sian author­i­ties must drop all charges against Pitke­vich and repeal the coun­try’s extrem­ism laws instead of using them to sti­fle dis­sent.»

Pali­na Pitke­vich was born in 1994 and grad­u­at­ed from the Fac­ul­ty of Jour­nal­ism at Belaru­sian State Uni­ver­si­ty in 2016. She was pas­sion­ate about the­ater and for some time per­formed as an actress with the Social The­ater Lab­o­ra­to­ry in Min­sk. As a jour­nal­ist, she wrote about cul­tur­al top­ics.

Pali­na is also known for her love of animals—her social media pages con­tain numer­ous posts about help­ing home­less pets. Accord­ing to friends, she had res­cued mul­ti­ple cats.