Novy Chas editor-in-chief Aksana Kolb is political prisoner

Joint state­ment by the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty

On 20 April the edi­tor-in-chief of Novy Chas news­pa­per Aksana Kolb was detained. A police squad armed with shields and sledge­ham­mers raid­ed the apart­ment where she lived. They said that they were tak­ing her to the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee for inter­ro­ga­tion.

On April 22, it became known that she was charged under part 1 of arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code (Orga­ni­za­tion and prepa­ra­tion of actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in them).

We, the under­signed orga­ni­za­tions, con­sid­er all these actions in rela­tion to Aksana Kolb as a con­tin­u­a­tion of the tar­get­ed pol­i­cy of the author­i­ties to lim­it the dis­sem­i­na­tion of uncen­sored infor­ma­tion in the coun­try and a con­tin­u­a­tion of the attack on free­dom of speech. After the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, dozens of NGO and media web­sites have been blocked in Belarus, a num­ber of print­ed media has been closed, and jour­nal­ists and employ­ees of the Belaru­sian media sec­tor have been impris­oned.

Giv­en the cir­cum­stances, we believe that the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Aksana Kolb is polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed and aimed at stop­ping or chang­ing the nature of her legit­i­mate pub­lic activ­i­ties in the sphere of non-vio­lent exer­cise of free­dom of expres­sion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion.

In our state­ment of August 10, 2020, the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty con­demned the actions of law enforce­ment agen­cies and placed all respon­si­bil­i­ty for what hap­pened on August 9 and 10, 2020, on the author­i­ties of Belarus.

Based on this and guid­ed by para. 2.1 and 3.1 of the Guide­lines on the Def­i­n­i­tion of Polit­i­cal Pris­on­ers adopt­ed at III Belaru­sian Human Rights Forum, we, human rights defend­ers, rec­og­nize Aksana Kolb as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er and call on the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to:

• imme­di­ate­ly release Aksana Kolb and drop crim­i­nal charges against her;

• refrain from using crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion as an instru­ment of pres­sure on free­dom of expres­sion, or oth­er rights and free­doms;

• imme­di­ate­ly release all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, as well as oth­er indi­vid­u­als detained in con­nec­tion with their exer­cise of free­dom of peace­ful assem­bly in the post-elec­tion peri­od, and stop polit­i­cal repres­sion in the coun­try.

Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

Human Rights Cen­ter Vias­na

Lawtrend

Legal ini­tia­tive

Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee