Committee to Protect Journalists: Belarusian authorities should immediately release journalist Siarhei Satsuk

On March 25, offi­cers of the State Con­trol Com­mit­tee, which over­sees the country’s finan­cial inves­ti­ga­tions, detained Sat­suk, chief edi­tor of the Yezhed­nevnik news web­site, accord­ing to Yezhed­nevnik and Barys Haret­s­ki, deputy head of the Belaruss­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, an inde­pen­dent trade group, who spoke to CPJ in a phone inter­view.

Offi­cers also searched Yezhednevnik’s offices and seized doc­u­ments, accord­ing to a report by the jour­nal­ists’ asso­ci­a­tion.

Today, the State Con­trol Com­mit­tee announced on its web­site that Sat­suk remained in deten­tion and that author­i­ties had opened a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into whether he accept­ed a bribe of $5,000. If charged and con­vict­ed, the jour­nal­ists could face up to 10 years in jail, accord­ing to the Belaru­sian crim­i­nal code.

Haret­s­ki said that Satsuk’s arrest fol­lowed Yezhed­nevnik pub­lish­ing reports on the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, say­ing, “author­i­ties want to teach a les­son to all jour­nal­ists who write about the pan­dem­ic, as they hide the infor­ma­tion pre­tend­ing noth­ing is hap­pen­ing in Belarus and the coun­try is free of coro­n­avirus.”

“Belaru­sian author­i­ties should not cook up charges of bribery to per­se­cute jour­nal­ists for their report­ing,” said Gul­noza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Cen­tral Asia pro­gram coor­di­na­tor, in New York. “Siarhei Sat­suk should be imme­di­ate­ly released and the charges against him dropped. Author­i­ties must allow jour­nal­ists to report on the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic, alleged cor­rup­tion, and all oth­er top­ics with­out fear of impris­on­ment.”

The journalist’s broth­er, Alyak­san­dr Sat­suk, denied the bribery alle­ga­tion, call­ing it “lies and non­sense” in an inter­view with the U.S. Con­gress-fund­ed broad­cast­er Radio Free Europe/Radio Lib­er­ty

On March 23, Sat­suk pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al crit­i­ciz­ing Belaru­sian author­i­ties’ han­dling of the coro­n­avirus and alleg­ing that they had dis­sem­i­nat­ed false infor­ma­tion on the virus.

On March 26, fol­low­ing his arrest, the Belaruss­ian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists pub­lished an arti­cle that Sat­suk had writ­ten in case he was arrest­ed, which said that he had pre­vi­ous­ly received anony­mous threats telling him to stop report­ing and “think about his fam­i­ly and him­self.”

Alyak­san­dr Sat­suk also said that the arrest could be retal­i­a­tion for Satsuk’s inves­tiga­tive report­ing into alleged cor­rup­tion at the Health Min­istry.

CPJ called the State Con­trol Com­mit­tee for com­ment, but no one answered the call.