Belarus journalists Katsiaryna Andreyeva and Darya Chultsova to face trial over protest reporting

New York, Feb­ru­ary 8, 2021 – Ahead of tomorrow’s tri­al of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists Kat­siary­na Andreye­va and Darya Chultso­va over their cov­er­age of protests in the coun­try, the Com­mit­tee to Pro­tect Jour­nal­ists issued the fol­low­ing state­ment:

“Belaru­sian author­i­ties should imme­di­ate­ly drop the absurd crim­i­nal charges against jour­nal­ists Kat­siary­na Andreye­va and Darya Chultso­va, and release them uncon­di­tion­al­ly,” said CPJ Europe and Cen­tral Asia Pro­gram Coor­di­na­tor Gul­noza Said. “The Belarus gov­ern­ment must stop pun­ish­ing jour­nal­ists for report­ing on impor­tant polit­i­cal events, and allow them to work freely and with­out fear of reprisal.”

Andreye­va, a cor­re­spon­dent for the Poland-based inde­pen­dent broad­cast­er Bel­sat TV, and Chultso­va, a cam­era oper­a­tor for the out­let, will appear tomor­row before a judge in the Frun­zen­sky Dis­trict Court of Min­sk, the cap­i­tal, accord­ing to news reports and Barys Haret­s­ki, deputy head of the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, an inde­pen­dent press free­dom and trade group, who spoke with CPJ via mes­sag­ing app. The two are charged with “orga­niz­ing and prepar­ing actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order,” which author­i­ties allege they com­mit­ted while cov­er­ing mass protests over the dis­put­ed August 2020 reelec­tion of Pres­i­dent Alek­san­dr Lukashenko, accord­ing to those sources. If con­vict­ed, they could face up to three years in jail, accord­ing to Belaru­sian law.

The two jour­nal­ists were detained on Novem­ber 15, 2020, while they were report­ing on protests in Min­sk, and were sen­tenced to sev­en days of admin­is­tra­tive arrest for alleged­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in an unsanc­tioned protest, accord­ing to CPJ research. After that arrest expired, author­i­ties filed new crim­i­nal charges, and the jour­nal­ists have remained in pre­tri­al deten­tion since then, accord­ing to that research. The jour­nal­ists were among the at least 10 mem­bers of the press detained in Belarus at the time of CPJ’s Decem­ber 2020 prison cen­sus.

Kat­siary­na Andreye­va is a pseu­do­nym the jour­nal­ist uses for her work; her legal name is Kat­siary­na Bakhval­o­va, accord­ing to news reports.

 

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