Ihar Karnei to be tried today for being member of ‘extremist formation’

The tri­al start­ed at 10 am today in the Min­sk City Court, presided over by Judge Siarhei Kat­sar. Diplo­mats of the EU, Aus­tria, the Nether­lands, Slo­va­kia, Swe­den, Ger­many, Poland, and the UK were at the court build­ing today in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the jour­nal­ist. In its state­ment, the EU Mis­sion in Belarus said that “the EU urges the imme­di­ate and uncon­di­tion­al release of all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, and their effec­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion.”

Ihar Karnei, the jour­nal­ist, is accused of par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion with the inten­tion of com­mit­ting an extrem­ist offense.

Ihar Karnei. Screen­shot of STV video

The penal­ty for this offense is free­dom restric­tion for two to six years or impris­on­ment for up to four years.

Ihar Karnei has been in prison for eight months.

Accord­ing to his fam­i­ly, he was detained on 17 July 2023 after a search of his home. The police seized a com­put­er and oth­er dig­i­tal media dur­ing the search. Karnei was tak­en to a tem­po­rary deten­tion cen­ter.

The jour­nal­ist was not released after 10 days of pre­lim­i­nary deten­tion and charged with a crime.

Ihar Karnei. Pho­to cred­it: RFE/RL Belarus

Ihar Karnei has been work­ing in jour­nal­ism since his stu­dent years. In the late 1980s, with friends and like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als, he co-found­ed an inde­pen­dent youth news­pa­per Lid­er in Orsha. He also con­tributed to Znamya Yunos­ti, Kras­naya Sme­na, and Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da news­pa­pers. From 1991, he worked at Zvyaz­da news­pa­per. Between 1994 and 2000, he served as a cor­re­spon­dent for the week­ly Svo­bod­nye Novosti. In 2000, he joined the RFE/RL Belarus office. Recent­ly, he has been work­ing as a free­lance jour­nal­ist.

Ihar Karnei was also arrest­ed dur­ing a peace­ful march in Min­sk on 15 Novem­ber 2020 and sen­tenced to 10 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion.