Barysau photographer Aliaksandr Ziankou to be tried on January 12

On 22 June 2023, Ali­ak­san­dr Ziank­ou, a pho­tog­ra­ph­er, was arrest­ed at his home in Barysau. Law enforce­ment offi­cers searched his house and seized his com­put­er equip­ment.

Pre­vi­ous­ly detained by the police, Ali­ak­san­dr Ziank­ou was not sub­ject to any admin­is­tra­tive or crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. In July 2020, Ziank­ou was among 47 jour­nal­ists and pho­tog­ra­phers arrest­ed in Min­sk. They were released after an iden­ti­ty check. In Sep­tem­ber 2020, police offi­cers warned the Barysau-based pho­tog­ra­ph­er about the con­se­quences of vio­lat­ing the law.

Ziank­ou has been work­ing as a free­lance pho­tog­ra­ph­er since 1998. He worked inde­pen­dent­ly as a pri­vate entre­pre­neur and col­lab­o­rat­ed with local inde­pen­dent pub­li­ca­tions. He also cre­at­ed award-win­ning doc­u­men­taries for Chris­t­ian film fes­ti­vals and Mag­nifikat TV shows after becom­ing inter­est­ed in videog­ra­phy. In 2015, the fes­ti­val jury rec­og­nized his cre­ative work on the recon­struc­tion of the church in the vil­lage of Zem­bin.

In his spare time, Ali­ak­san­dr enjoyed wildlife pho­tog­ra­phy.

Before the arrest, he had been trav­el­ing exten­sive­ly and engag­ing in cre­ative work, cap­tur­ing land­scapes, nat­ur­al phe­nom­e­na, birds, and archi­tec­tur­al mon­u­ments. In Decem­ber 2022, he held a per­son­al pho­to exhi­bi­tion.

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