Aliaksandr Mantsevich transferred to Baranavichy remand prison

On 3 Novem­ber this year, the Mal­adzech­na Dis­trict Court chaired by Judge Ali­ak­san­dr Irshyn, found Ali­ak­san­dr Mant­se­vich guilty of dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus. Mant­se­vich was sen­tenced to four years of impris­on­ment and a fine of $4,500.

Mant­se­vich was arrest­ed on March 15 after his house in Vilei­ka was searched and has been in cus­tody ever since. The jour­nal­ist is charged with dis­cred­it­ing the state.

Alleged­ly, Ali­ak­san­dr Mant­se­vich, who was the leader of the edi­to­r­i­al board of Rehi­janal­na­ja Haze­ta, and some oth­er peo­ple, spread false infor­ma­tion that dis­cred­it­ed the Belaru­sian gov­ern­ment and its pow­er. This was done through the news­pa­per and social media plat­forms over a peri­od from 1 Jan­u­ary 2020 to 15 March 2023.

More­over, it is anoth­er attempt to sup­press free speech. Rehi­janal­na­ja Haze­ta was com­pelled to dis­con­tin­ue pro­duc­ing the print ver­sion in July 2021 and pri­or­i­tize the online issue. In Jan­u­ary 2023, fol­low­ing a Mal­adzech­na Dis­trict Court rul­ing, the Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion added the news­pa­per’s web­site and Telegram chan­nel to the Repub­li­can List of Extrem­ist Mate­ri­als. After police raid­ed the news­room and arrest­ed the chief edi­tor, the court deemed the Vkon­tak­te social media page of the pub­li­ca­tion as «extrem­ist.»

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