Journalists Alena Tsimashchuk and Aliaksandr Kirkevich added to “extremists” list

The list of “per­sons prone to extrem­ist activ­i­ty,” updat­ed on August 23 on the web­site of the Min­istry of Inter­nal Affairs of Belarus, indi­cates that Brest-based jour­nal­ist Ale­na Tsi­mashchuk is cur­rent­ly serv­ing a sen­tence. The same is true for Ali­ak­san­dr Kirke­vich, a jour­nal­ist from Hrod­na. How­ev­er, he has long since left Belarus and is not impris­oned.

Jour­nal­ists Ali­ak­san­dr Kirke­vich and Ale­na Tsi­mashchuk. Pho­to: Ale­na Tsimashchuk’s social media account

Alena Tsimashchuk

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

On June 3, 2024, the Brest Region­al Court sen­tenced her to five years in prison and a $14,000 fine. She was tried on three charges: dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus, incite­ment to hos­til­i­ty or dis­cord, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion.

Her col­leagues 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.

Ales Kirkevich

Ales Kirke­vich is an inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ist, writer, and local his­to­ri­an, for­mer deputy chair­man of the Youth Front oppo­si­tion move­ment, and for­mer polit­i­cal pris­on­er. He par­tic­i­pat­ed in the protests against the stolen 2010 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion and was arrest­ed in ear­ly 2011. He was then sen­tenced to 4 years in prison but amnestied after a few months.

Ales left Belarus, but the spe­cial pro­ceed­ings against him were ini­ti­at­ed on 29 March 2024. On August 2, the court found the jour­nal­ist guilty of two counts of pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ty and sen­tenced him to 7 years of impris­on­ment and a fine of $7,330.

Ales Kirkevich’s sen­tence shall com­mence on his actu­al arrest date.

Based on the list of mate­r­i­al evi­dence, the crim­i­nal case against Ales Kirke­vich was ini­ti­at­ed due to his coop­er­a­tion with inde­pen­dent media out­lets in Belarus des­ig­nat­ed as extrem­ist for­ma­tions.

The court ordered the sale of Ales Kirkevich’s prop­er­ty to set­tle a por­tion of the fine. The prop­er­ty, which is locat­ed in a vil­lage in the Vit­seb­sk Region, com­pris­es approx­i­mate­ly one-third of the own­er­ship of a house that was pre­vi­ous­ly used by civ­il activists for sum­mer camps. The build­ing, for­mer­ly a vil­lage school, is notable as the place where the writer Vasil Bykau stud­ied.