Aksana Kolb resigns from her position as Novy Chas editor-in-chief

“I joined the team of Zho­da news­pa­per over 28 years ago, which was renamed Novy Chas in 2007. Dur­ing my time there, I had the plea­sure of work­ing with won­der­ful peo­ple and doing what I love with pas­sion. For over eight years, I served as the edi­tor-in-chief of the best pub­li­ca­tion in Belarus. I hope that our late boss, Ali­ak­sei Karol, would be proud of my work. Novy Chas was not only my work­place but also my home and fam­i­ly. How­ev­er, time inevitably pass­es, and serv­ing two terms, or eight years, is a lengthy peri­od. To avoid cling­ing to pow­er, I decid­ed to step down,” stat­ed Aksana Kolb.

It is worth not­ing that Aksana Kolb was detained on 20 April 2022 and charged with orga­niz­ing and prepar­ing actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order, or active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in them. On 12 June last year, she was sen­tenced to 2.5 years of free­dom restric­tion. She left Belarus before the ver­dict was enforced.

Aksana Kolb was rec­og­nized as ‘Jour­nal­ist of the Year 2022’ by a human rights orga­ni­za­tion after leav­ing Belarus.

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