Fourteen organisations call for the immediate and unconditional Andrei Aliaksandrau

Ali­ak­san­drau has long been a defend­er of free­dom of expres­sion in Belarus and beyond, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly held posi­tions at the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, Index on Cen­sor­ship, and Arti­cle 19 among oth­er media and free speech organ­i­sa­tions.

Ali­ak­san­drau was detained in Jan­u­ary 2021. The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee, Belarus’s crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion ser­vice, indict­ed him on pub­lic order offences, for which he was fac­ing up to three years in prison. The charges stem from alle­ga­tions that Ali­ak­san­drau paid the fines of jour­nal­ists and pro­test­ers whom author­i­ties detained dur­ing last year’s pro-democ­ra­cy protests, trig­gered by the high­ly dis­put­ed August 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. The Belaru­sian Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee and oth­er law enforce­ment agen­cies wrong­ly equat­ed this with financ­ing unlaw­ful protests.

On 30 June, Bela­pan report­ed that Ali­ak­san­drau has now been charged with “trea­son to the state” based on the same set of alle­ga­tions. 

“More than €530,000 worth of fines were imposed on pro­test­ers between 9 August and the end of 2020. It is absurd to con­flate efforts to help pay those fines with a pub­lic order offense, let alone trea­son,” the organ­i­sa­tions said. 

“Belaru­sian author­i­ties cre­at­ed a new mark of tyran­ny by lay­ing trea­son charges against Ali­ak­san­drou. While we urge the release of all 529 polit­i­cal pris­on­ers cur­rent­ly detained in Belarus, which include at least 15 jour­nal­ists, we are at this point in time express­ing spe­cial con­cern for Ali­ak­san­drau. To date, he is the only detainee fac­ing the fab­ri­cat­ed charge of trea­son.”

“Ali­ak­san­drau has already spent 172 days in prison for his alleged ‘crime’. We call for his imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release,” the organ­i­sa­tions said.

Signed by:

Arti­cle 19

Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ)

East Euro­pean Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tre (EEDC) 

Euro­pean Cen­tre for Press and Media Free­dom

Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (EFJ)

Free Press Unlim­it­ed (FPU)

Human Rights House Foun­da­tion (HRHF)

Human Rights Watch

IFEX

Index on Cen­sor­ship

Inter­na­tion­al Media Sup­port (IMS)

PEN Amer­i­ca

Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF)

South East Europe Media Organ­i­sa­tion (SEEMO)