Journalist Pavel Mazheika detained in Hrodna

Back in the days, the jour­nal­ist used to work in Mikal Markevich’s Paho­nia news­pa­per.

In 2002–2004, he was sen­tenced to free­dom restric­tion for “slan­der­ing” Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka in an arti­cle on the dis­ap­pear­ance of Zakha­ran­ka, Han­char, and oth­er oppo­nents of the Belarus’ pres­i­dent.

Pavel Mazhei­ka host­ed a show on Bel­sat and act­ed as the exec­u­tive direc­tor of the chan­nel. He returned to Hrod­na from Poland and cre­at­ed the Urban Life Cen­ter.

The cen­ter has been shut down fol­low­ing a claim of the Hrod­na prosecutor’s office.

In 2021, a crim­i­nal case was opened against Pavel Mazhei­ka, artist Ales Pushkin, and “oth­er per­sons” under part 3 of Art. 130 of the Crim­i­nal Code for actions aimed at the reha­bil­i­ta­tion and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of Nazism.

The rea­son was the demon­stra­tion of a por­trait of Jauhen Zhykhar, a Belaru­sian anti-sovi­et activist, with a machine gun on his shoul­der at a paint­ing exhi­bi­tion on 19 March 2021, the prosecutor’s office said. Mazhei­ka was lat­er released due to “lack of grounds for deten­tion.”