Statement on recognizing five members of Press Club Belarus as political prisoners

Min­sk – Jan­u­ary 13, 2021

On Decem­ber 22, finan­cial police detained Yuliya Slut­skaya, founder of the Press Club media and edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tion, Ala Sharko, Press Club’s pro­gram direc­tor, Siarhei Alsheus­ki, Press Club’s finan­cial direc­tor, video­g­ra­ph­er Piotr Slut­s­ki, and Kseniya Lut­ski­na, a for­mer employ­ee of the gov­ern­ment-owned TV and radio hold­ing “Bel­tel­era­dio­com­pa­ny” relat­ed to a media project co-run by Press Club’s Acad­e­my.

The apart­ments of sev­er­al employ­ees and Press Club’s office were searched.

The Depart­ment of Finan­cial Inves­ti­ga­tions of the State Con­trol Com­mit­tee said that it was inves­ti­gat­ing vio­la­tions of the tax leg­is­la­tion of the Repub­lic of Belarus involv­ing employ­ees of Press Club Belarus and oth­er busi­ness enti­ties, includ­ing in con­nec­tion with large sums of mon­ey received from abroad.

On Decem­ber 31, the detainees were charged with com­mit­ting a crime under Part 2 of Arti­cle 243 of the Crim­i­nal Code (tax eva­sion on a large scale). They were remand­ed in pre-tri­al deten­tion. Yuliya Slut­skaya and her asso­ciates are cur­rent­ly held in pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter No. 1 in Min­sk.

It is known that Press Club’s Acad­e­my orga­nized a hackathon of media projects, which fea­tured more than 30 pro­pos­als. The jury, con­sist­ing of media experts and investors, select­ed 7 media projects aimed at pro­mot­ing free­dom of speech, one of which was a video project with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Kseniya Lut­ski­na, a for­mer employ­ee of Bel­tel­era­dio­com­pa­ny.

The arrest and deten­tion of Yuliya Slut­skaya, Ala Sharko, Siarhei Alsheus­ki, Piotr Slut­s­ki, and Kseniya Lut­ski­na are a con­tin­u­a­tion of the wave of repres­sions trig­gered by the announce­ment of the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in ear­ly May 2020. Over the 10 months, thou­sands of cit­i­zens, includ­ing jour­nal­ists and blog­gers, NGO activists, were sub­ject­ed to var­i­ous forms of repres­sion and harass­ment: dis­missals, short terms of admin­is­tra­tive impris­on­ment, fines, and polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed crim­i­nal charges.

This is described as a cri­sis of human rights by the country’s human rights com­mu­ni­ty.

It should be not­ed that it is not the first time that the Belaru­sian author­i­ties use fraud alle­ga­tions to car­ry out repres­sions. In recent years, Ales Biali­ats­ki, chair­man of the Human Rights Cen­ter “Vias­na”, Henadz Fia­dyn­ich, leader of the inde­pen­dent trade union REP, Ales Lipai, head of the Bela­pan news agency, and oth­ers have been pros­e­cut­ed on polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed charges of tax eva­sion.

Giv­en these cir­cum­stances, we con­clude that the true grounds for the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Yuliya Slut­skaya, Ala Sharko, Siarhei Alsheus­ki, Piotr Slut­s­ki, and Kseniya Lut­ski­na are polit­i­cal motives aimed at ter­mi­nat­ing or affect­ing their pub­lic activ­i­ties car­ried out for legit­i­mate pur­pos­es as part of civ­il soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions in con­nec­tion with the non-vio­lent exer­cise of free­dom of expres­sion and dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion.

Based on this, guid­ed by para­graphs 2.1, 3.1 a) of the Guide­lines on the Def­i­n­i­tion of Polit­i­cal Pris­on­ers, adopt­ed at the 3rd Belaru­sian Human Rights Forum, we, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions, rec­og­nize Yuliya Slut­skaya, Ala Sharko, Siarhei Alsheus­ki, Piotr Slut­s­ki, and Kseniya Lut­ski­na as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers and call to:

• imme­di­ate­ly release Yuliya Slut­skaya, Ala Sharko, Siarhei Alsheus­ki, Piotr Slut­s­ki, and Kseniya Lut­ski­na from cus­tody;
• refrain from using crim­i­nal charges as an instru­ment of pres­sure on free­dom of expres­sion and free­dom of asso­ci­a­tion;
• imme­di­ate­ly put an end to repres­sion and release all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

Human Rights Cen­ter «Vias­na»

Legal Ini­tia­tive

Belaru­sian Doc­u­men­ta­tion Cen­ter

FORB Ini­tia­tive

PEN Belarus

Cen­ter for Legal Trans­for­ma­tion “Lawtrend”

Barys Zvozskau Belaru­sian Human Rights House

Human Con­stan­ta

Ini­tia­tive Group “Iden­ti­ty and Law”

Assem­bly of Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Demo­c­ra­t­ic Orga­ni­za­tions of Belarus

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