Love behind bars: dozens of Belarusian families in jail “over politics”

Daria and Ihar Losik

Ihar Losik, a jour­nal­ist for RFE/RL Belarus and admin­is­tra­tor of a pop­u­lar protest Telegram chan­nel, was detained on 25 June 2020, even before the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions and mass protests start­ed in Belarus. He met his wife Daria in 2009 on social media. They mar­ried as stu­dents and have a young daugh­ter, Pauli­na.

When accused of prepar­ing to par­tic­i­pate in mass riots, Ihar Losik went on a 42-day hunger strike in protest.

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Daria joined the strike in sol­i­dar­i­ty with her hus­band. On 14 Decem­ber 2021, Ihar Losik was sen­tenced to 15 years of impris­on­ment. Six months lat­er, the KGB put him on the list of per­sons involved in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties and the family’s prop­er­ty was sequestered.

All this time Daria fought for her hus­band, pro­mot­ed his sto­ry in var­i­ous mass media, and even pub­licly chal­lenged Lukashen­ka to orga­nize a con­ver­sa­tion with her. The woman was detained on 18 Octo­ber 2022 when she and her 4‑year-old daugh­ter were still asleep in their home. Accord­ing to pro-regime Telegram chan­nels, Daria is accused of aid­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties by giv­ing an inter­view to the Bel­sat TV chan­nel in the spring of 2022.

Iryna Zlobina and Andrei Aliaksandrau

Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau is a well-known Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist and media man­ag­er. Iry­na Zlobi­na had been run­ning her small busi­ness – the pro­duc­tion of flow­ers and sou­venirs. They were detained on 12 Jan­u­ary 2021 by the Min­istry of Inte­ri­or on charges of financ­ing protest actions, in par­tic­u­lar for pay­ing fines imposed on pro­test­ers. Ali­ak­san­drau was addi­tion­al­ly charged with high trea­son and par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion (Bela­PAN media agency). On 1 Sep­tem­ber 2022, Iry­na and Andrei got mar­ried in a pre-tri­al deten­tion facil­i­ty.

The tri­al in the “Bela­PAN case” start­ed on 6 June 2022 and last­ed for four months. On 6 Octo­ber Min­sk Region­al Court announced the ver­dict: Andrei was sen­tenced to 14 years of impris­on­ment, Iry­na – to 9 years of impris­on­ment.

Sniazhana Inanets and Aliaksandr Lychauka

Ali­ak­san­dr Lychau­ka is a local his­to­ri­an and jour­nal­ist from Min­sk. Sni­azhana Inanets is a jour­nal­ist who pre­vi­ous­ly worked with TUT.by and Onliner.by media out­lets. She authored texts on local his­to­ry and cul­tur­al top­ics. On 6 Octo­ber 2022, the cou­ple was detained; the next day their “repen­tant” video was post­ed on a pro-regime Telegram chan­nel. The video said that they had been detained for fol­low­ing Telegram chan­nels declared extrem­ist by the Belaru­sian author­i­ties, as well as for par­tic­i­pat­ing in protest march­es in 2020.

Palina Palavinka and Dzmitry Luksha

Dzmit­ry Luk­sha is a jour­nal­ist who used to work for the Nation­al State TV and Radio Com­pa­ny of the Repub­lic of Belarus and host­ed Zone X show. He was detained after a search of his apart­ment in Min­sk on 11 March 2022. At that time, Dzmit­ry was a free­lance cor­re­spon­dent of the Kaza­kh TV chan­nel Khabar 24, and the rea­son for his deten­tion was his last cov­er­age on the chan­nel. His wife Pali­na Palavin­ka was arrest­ed lat­er – on 2 June 2022.

Accord­ing to the indict­ment, Luk­sha, with the help of a cam­era­man, shot a series of videos con­tain­ing false infor­ma­tion intend­ing to dis­cred­it Belarus. On 2 Decem­ber, he was sen­tenced to four years of impris­on­ment. Pali­na got 2.5 years in prison.