Exiled Belarusian journalists face property seizures amid ongoing government crackdown

Han­na Zlatk­ouskaya left Belarus in Novem­ber 2020. Recent­ly, it became known that a crim­i­nal case was opened against the colum­nist. Her mother’s apart­ment was also searched.

Han­na Zlatk­ouskaya. Pho­to: from her per­son­al Face­book page

On Octo­ber 8, secu­ri­ty forces in Min­sk searched the apart­ment of the moth­er of jour­nal­ist and colum­nist Han­na Zlatk­ouskaya. She report­ed this on her Face­book page.

On the same day, it was revealed that a crim­i­nal case had been ini­ti­at­ed against Zlatk­ouskaya in Belarus and that her prop­er­ty – in par­tic­u­lar, her cot­tage – had been seized. The arti­cle under which the jour­nal­ist is being pros­e­cut­ed and the nature of the charges remain unknown.

“A crim­i­nal case has been opened against me. I am reg­is­tered at my mother’s apart­ment, which is prob­a­bly why they came to search her place. Although maybe they just come to search the homes of close rel­a­tives, regard­less of whether the per­son under inves­ti­ga­tion is reg­is­tered there or not,” Han­na Zlatk­ouskaya told the BAJ mon­i­tor­ing ser­vice.

“They haven’t told my moth­er what this crim­i­nal case is about. Accord­ing to them, they can only tell me. The author­i­ties prob­a­bly know that I am in Lithua­nia. How they plan to inform me per­son­al­ly, I do not know. I am think­ing of call­ing them, but I doubt it will help. More like­ly, they will polite­ly sug­gest that I come back, promis­ing to explain every­thing in per­son,” Han­na Zlatk­ouskaya said iron­i­cal­ly.

“The sum­mer cot­tage, which was seized by order of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee, is my only real estate,” Han­na said. “It seems they are tak­ing every­thing they can. It’s been seized, and I don’t know what will hap­pen next. It’s a real hard­ship, of course. My moth­er spends every sea­son in this sum­mer cot­tage; it’s her only refuge in all of this. And so much effort has been put into it. I’m afraid to even think about it being tak­en away.”

Han­na Zlatk­ouskaya is a writer, jour­nal­ist, and colum­nist. She is the author of two books: “Scared to Live, Mom” and “But­ter­fly Hunt­ing”. She has col­lab­o­rat­ed with a num­ber of inde­pen­dent media out­lets and media projects.

A sim­i­lar inci­dent recent­ly occurred with anoth­er Belaru­sian jour­nal­ist. The fam­i­ly res­i­dence of Ali­ak­sei Dzikav­it­s­ki, act­ing direc­tor of Bel­sat, has been sequestered in Belarus, accord­ing to a report from the TV chan­nel.