BAJ demands repealing of Iryna Slaunikava’s sentence: Journalists are not extremists, dissent is not a crime STATEMENT

The Homel Region­al Court sen­tenced jour­nal­ist Iry­na Slau­nika­va to 5 years of impris­on­ment in a closed tri­al.

The jour­nal­ist was found guilty of orga­niz­ing group actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order and cre­at­ing or run­ning an extrem­ist for­ma­tion. The lat­ter refers to the Bel­sat tele­vi­sion chan­nel, which the Belaru­sian author­i­ties rec­og­nized as an extrem­ist for­ma­tion.

With this ver­dict, the court in Homel effec­tive­ly equat­ed the right to receive and dis­trib­ute infor­ma­tion to extrem­ist activ­i­ty. The Belaru­sian author­i­ties keep per­se­cut­ing jour­nal­ists for exer­cis­ing their right to free­dom of expres­sion. But jour­nal­ists are not extrem­ists, and dis­sent is not a crime.

The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists calls for the annul­ment of Iry­na Slaunikava’s sen­tence and the imme­di­ate release of all 29 media work­ers who are cur­rent­ly behind bars in Belarus.

BAJ express­es its sup­port and respect to Iry­na and all oth­er col­leagues behind bars.

Repressions against journalists in Belarus 2022, list of colleagues in prison