December 24. The international organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) demanded from the “Belarusian regime” the immediate release of bloggers Ihar Losik and Eduard Palčys, who were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
The statement describes the sentences as “extraordinarily harsh”.
“After being held for 15 months, Palčys received his 13-year jail sentence in a sham trial in Minsk on 17 December. He was convicted on charges of inciting hatred, organising mass rioting, organising activities that disrupt social order, and calling for activities detrimental to national security. Three days earlier in Homiel […], a consultant for Radio Svaboda (the Belarusian service of the Prague-based US broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), Ihar Losik was given his 15-year jail sentence after being detained for 18 months. Along with six other political prisoners, he was convicted of organising mass rioting and inciting hatred at the end of a 173-day trial, the longest ever held in Belarus. Both trials were held behind closed doors in order, according to the judicial authorities, to “prevent the dissemination of extremist documents,” Reporters Without Borders note.
“These extraordinarily harsh sentences, passed at the end of grossly unfair trials, are the severest that Belarusian courts have passed on media professionals this year,” said Jeanne Cavelier, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk.
In her opinion, “this persecution by the Belarusian justice system and the unprecedented severity of these sentences presage the worst for press freedom in Belarus in 2022.”
“Belarus, whose state apparatus does not hesitate to mistreat and torture journalists in prison, is ranked 158th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index,” the statement reads.
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