Videographer Andrei Tolchyn sentenced to two and a half years in prison

Two-and-a-half years’ impris­on­ment in a penal colony – this sen­tence was hand­ed down on March 21 by Homel Region­al Court judge Dzmit­ry Kazlou, who has repeat­ed­ly tried res­i­dents of the Homel Region in polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed crim­i­nal cas­es.

Andrei Tolchyn. File pho­to

The court con­vict­ed jour­nal­ist Andrei Tolchyn of pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties and defam­ing the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Belarus. The pros­e­cu­tor asked for a three-year prison sen­tence for the free­lancer.

The tri­al of the free­lance video­g­ra­ph­er start­ed on March 5. The court dis­missed the charges of dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus, at the request of the pros­e­cu­tor.

Law enforcers arrest­ed Tolchyn on Sep­tem­ber 23 of this year. The day fol­low­ing the arrest, author­i­ties searched his apart­ment, where he resided with his spouse. Inves­ti­ga­tors seized com­put­er equip­ment and oth­er dig­i­tal media.

Tolchyn was trans­ferred to Homel pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter a few days lat­er, where he remains. The 64-year-old journalist’s health dete­ri­o­rat­ed while in deten­tion. He already suf­fered from hyper­ten­sion and rag­ing pain in his legs.

On Novem­ber 16 of last year, the Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized Andrei Tolchyn as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

Andrei Tolchyn became a promi­nent fig­ure in the demo­c­ra­t­ic com­mu­ni­ty of Homel dur­ing the 1990s when Belarus was gain­ing inde­pen­dence. He worked as a ser­vice engi­neer at the radio fac­to­ry Pra­men and took part in the inde­pen­dent trade union move­ment, cam­paign­ing for the safe­guard­ing of work­ers’ rights. Andrei was elect­ed as a deputy of the Homel City Coun­cil. This coun­cil, one of two in Belarus, pub­licly opposed the com­mu­nist coup in Moscow and cel­e­brat­ed the Repub­lic of Belarus’s procla­ma­tion of inde­pen­dence in August 1991.

Andrei worked in the Pub­lic and Media Rela­tions Com­mit­tee dur­ing his tenure in the Coun­cil. He was a mem­ber of the Unit­ed Civ­il Par­ty, which has been dis­solved by the author­i­ties. He used to lead the party’s city orga­ni­za­tion for a long time and over­saw the oper­a­tions of char­i­ta­ble foun­da­tions that pro­mote democ­ra­cy. He was inter­mit­tent­ly unem­ployed. He found­ed the Gomel­skie Vedo­mosti news­pa­per.

After the 2010 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, Tolchyn col­lab­o­rat­ed with inde­pen­dent media out­lets as a video­g­ra­ph­er and was fined sev­er­al times and even admin­is­tra­tive­ly detained. In 2020, Tolchyn got arrest­ed along with jour­nal­ist Larysa Shchyrako­va while doc­u­ment­ing demon­stra­tions, under the alle­ga­tion of involve­ment in mass riots.