Siarhei Hardziyevich, former political prisoner and journalist, detained for 15 days

Police offi­cers of the Drahichyn Dis­trict Depart­ment of Inter­nal Affairs detained Siarhei Hardziye­vich and drew up an admin­is­tra­tive report for shar­ing a pub­li­ca­tion from the Hantsav­it­s­ki Chas online media on 11 Novem­ber 2023, accord­ing to 1pr.by. The police report does not spec­i­fy which pub­li­ca­tion was shared, but it was from an inter­net resource rec­og­nized as ‘extrem­ist’ in Belarus.

The Min­istry of Infor­ma­tion of the Repub­lic of Belarus informed the own­er of the web­site about the deci­sion to block Hantsav­it­s­ki Chas as late as 15 Novem­ber 2023. Siarhei Hardziye­vich stat­ed in court that he had delet­ed his account on Vkon­tak­te social media in Novem­ber 2023. He aimed to prove that his actions were not an admin­is­tra­tive offence.

The judge refused to con­sid­er that Hardziyevich’s health had sig­nif­i­cant­ly dete­ri­o­rat­ed, caus­ing him to lose con­scious­ness and seek med­ical atten­tion mul­ti­ple times. The jour­nal­ist Siarhei Hardziye­vich was sen­tenced to 15 days of deten­tion.

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