Archive

07.03.2023

Journalists and human rights defenders are not extremists. BAJ considers it absurd that the organization was recognized as "extremist". STATEMENT

On March 7, it became known that the State Security Committee of Belarus recognized the Belarusian Association of Journalists as an extremist formation. BAJ became the first Belarusian human rights organization that ”received" such a status.

06.03.2023

Prosecutor Seeks 10-Year Prison Terms For Belarusian Activists Considered Political Prisoners

MINSK -- The prosecutor at the trial of two activists in Belarus -- Valeryya Kastsyuhova and Tatsyana Kuzina -- has asked a court in Minsk to convict the two women and sentence them to 10 years in prison each as part of an ongoing crackdown on dissent under authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka.

03.03.2023

Viasna leadership receives from 7 to 10 years in jail

Judge Maryna Zapasnik of the Lieninski District Court of Minsk decided that the guilt of human rights defenders of “smuggling by an organized group” under Part 4 Article 228 of the Criminal Code and “financing of group actions grossly violating the public order” under Part 2 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code has been fully proven.

02.03.2023

Convicted journalist Iryna Slaunikava’s vision deteriorated

Iryna Slaunikava, convicted to 5 years imprisonment for allegedly “creating an extremist formation”, reported vision changes that she attributed to bad lighting in the pre-trial detention center where she had been kept. The workload in the sewing shop of the Homel women’s penitentiary only aggravates the situation. Aliaksandr Loika, Iryna’s husband said that convicted women work as virtually free seamstresses in prison. They have almost no free time because of work.

02.03.2023

Andrzej Poczobut placed in solitary confinement

Journalist Andrzej Poczobut was previously sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment.

02.03.2023

Joint statement in the run-up to the verdict in the Viasna case

Paris-Geneva, March 2, 2023 – Tomorrow, the Leninsky District Court in Minsk is expected to hand down its verdict in the case of Viasna leaders Ales Bialiatski, Valiantsin Stefanovic and Uladzimir Labkovich. On the eve of the verdict, the signatory organisations reiterate their calls to release the human rights defenders and drop all charges against them.