Belarusian journalists detained, forced to make ‘confession’ videos

On Thurs­day, Octo­ber 6, police in Min­sk, the cap­i­tal, detained Snezhana Inanets, a reporter at the inde­pen­dent news web­site Onlin­er, and her hus­band Ali­ak­san­dr Lychavko, a local his­to­ri­an and reporter with inde­pen­dent news web­site The Vil­lage, mul­ti­ple media reports said.

In videos pub­lished on Fri­day by a pro-gov­ern­ment Telegram chan­nel, Lychavko and Inanets say they were detained for tak­ing part in the 2020 nation­wide protests demand­ing the res­ig­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Alek­san­dr Lukashenko and sub­scrib­ing to “destruc­tive” Telegram chan­nels and chats. Lychavko also said he repost­ed infor­ma­tion, with­out spec­i­fy­ing the nature of the infor­ma­tion. Barys Haret­s­ki, deputy head of the banned local advo­ca­cy and trade group Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), told CPJ via mes­sag­ing app that both Lychavko and Inanets were cov­er­ing the 2020 protests as jour­nal­ists.

Sep­a­rate­ly on Fri­day, a court in Hly­bokaye, in north­ern Belarus, ordered that pho­to­jour­nal­ist Leonid Yurik be detained for five days for “dis­sem­i­nat­ing infor­ma­tion con­tain­ing calls to extrem­ist activ­i­ties,” accord­ing to BAJ.

“The deten­tion of jour­nal­ists Snezhana Inanets, Ali­ak­san­dr Lychavko, and Leonid Yurik in Belarus shows that author­i­ties’ crack­down on mem­bers of the press will not stop until the last inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ist is either impris­oned or has fled the coun­try,” said Gul­noza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Cen­tral Asia pro­gram coor­di­na­tor, in New York. “It is appalling that some are forced to make ‘con­fes­sion videos’ sug­gest­ing they were at polit­i­cal protests as par­tic­i­pants rather than reporters. Those still being held should be released and charges against them dropped imme­di­ate­ly.”

Lychavko and Inanets are held in pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter No. 1 in Min­sk and charged with alleged­ly “orga­niz­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in gross vio­la­tions of pub­lic order,” the asso­ci­a­tion report­ed. If found guilty, they face up to four years in prison, accord­ing to the Belaru­sian crim­i­nal code.

In Yurik’s case, offi­cers with the Min­istry of Interior’s Main Direc­torate for Com­bat­ing Orga­nized Crime and Cor­rup­tion detained Yurik on Wednes­day, Octo­ber 5, in Hly­bokaye, media reports said. Author­i­ties did not dis­close the exact rea­son for Yurik’s deten­tion, but Haret­s­ki told CPJ via mes­sag­ing app that he believed Yurik’s arrest was retal­i­a­tion for his jour­nal­ism. Yurik was released on Octo­ber 10, Haret­s­ki said.

Sep­a­rate­ly, on Sep­tem­ber 14, author­i­ties in Min­sk detained Andrey Ilyenya, a reporter with online sports web­site Press­ball, and held him for 10 days, accord­ing to mul­ti­ple media reports, a BAJ post, and a post by for­mer Press­ball jour­nal­ist Niko­lai Ivanov, who spoke to CPJ via mes­sag­ing app. 

Ivanov told CPJ that Ilye­na was released on Sep­tem­ber 25. CPJ con­tact­ed Ilye­na via mes­sag­ing app for con­fir­ma­tion but did not receive any reply. In a Telegram post, BAJ con­firmed that Ilye­na was free.

BAJ report­ed that Ilye­na came under the author­i­ties’ scruti­ny because he was recent­ly accred­it­ed to cov­er the away match­es of the Belaru­sian nation­al foot­ball team in the UEFA Nations League. Author­i­ties said that he post­ed a white-red-white flag, a sym­bol of anti-Lukashenko protests, on his Face­book pic­ture.

CPJ called the Main Direc­torate for Com­bat­ing Orga­nized Crime and Cor­rup­tion and emailed the Belaru­sian inves­tiga­tive com­mit­tee for com­ment, but no one answered.

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