BAJ demands to release and overturn sentence of Nasha Niva journalists Yahor Martsinovich and Andrei Skurko

Statement of the Belarusian Association of Journalists on the conviction of Yahor Martsinovich and Andrei Skurko

On 15 March 2022, the judge of the Min­sk Zavod­s­ki Dis­trict Court Anzhela Kast­siuke­vich sen­tenced Yahor Martsi­novich, the Nasha Niva edi­tor-in-chief, and Andrei Skurko, the head of the adver­tis­ing and mar­ket­ing depart­ment at Nasha Niva, to two and a half years in prison.

Our col­leagues have been found guilty of absurd charges of «caus­ing injury not qual­i­fy­ing for theft, com­mit­ted by a group of per­sons in col­lu­sion, or major injury» (art. 216.2 of the Crim­i­nal Code). The jour­nal­ists did not plead guilty.

We are con­vinced that the real grounds for the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Yahor Martsi­novich and Andrei Skurko are polit­i­cal motives aimed at shut­ting down one of the lead­ing non-gov­ern­men­tal media. Yahor Martsi­novich and Andrei Skurko are rec­og­nized as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers by the human rights com­mu­ni­ty.

Fol­low­ing the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions in Belarus, dozens of media sites and sites cov­er­ing pub­lic affairs were blocked in Belarus, almost all inde­pen­dent print pub­li­ca­tions were forced to stop pub­lish­ing, 30 jour­nal­ists and media work­ers are in prison in Belarus.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists demands that:

the sen­tences of Yahor Martsi­novich, Andrei Skurko, and the oth­er 28 impris­oned media work­ers are over­turned and they are released;

the prac­tice of using of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion as an instru­ment of pres­sure on free­dom of expres­sion is aban­doned;

the crack­down on jour­nal­ists and media in the coun­try is stopped imme­di­ate­ly.