First Belarusian journalist convicted “in absentia” to 12 years of prison

The crim­i­nal case involves five peo­ple – Dzmit­ry Navosha, Yan­i­na Sazanovich, Daniel Bah­danovich, Valeryia Zani­a­mon­skaya, and Vol­ha Vysot­skaya. None of the defen­dants were present at the tri­al, all are now safe out­side Belarus.

Judge Natal­lia Buhuk con­vict­ed them to 12 years in prison and a huge fine. She is notable for hold­ing polit­i­cal tri­als of oth­er jour­nal­ists. Buhuk sen­tenced Bel­sat TV chan­nel cor­re­spon­dents Daria Chultso­va and Kat­siary­na Andreye­va to two years in prison and for­mer Nation­al TV pre­sen­ter Dzmit­ry Luk­sha to four years of impris­on­ment.

The defen­dants in the “Black Book of Belarus case” were charged with incit­ing social enmi­ty and unlaw­ful acts in rela­tion to per­son­al data. All of them were accused of run­ning a Telegram chan­nel that pub­lished the per­son­al data of peo­ple snac­tion­ing and using vio­lence against regime oppo­nents dur­ing the 2020 protests.

Accord­ing to the pros­e­cu­tion, Dzmit­ry Navosha, Yan­i­na Sazanovich, Daniel Bah­danovich, Valeryia Zani­a­mon­skaya, and Vol­ha Vysot­skaya clanned into a “crim­i­nal group” that cre­at­ed var­i­ous Inter­net resources. The main pur­pose of their activ­i­ties, accord­ing to the indict­ment, is “dis­cred­it­ing and incit­ing social enmi­ty towards the author­i­ties and law enforce­ment agen­cies, spread­ing defam­a­to­ry infor­ma­tion about them, and incit­ing extrem­ist crimes.

“Infor­ma­tion about the pri­vate life and per­son­al data of hun­dreds of indi­vid­u­als was ille­gal­ly col­lect­ed and made pub­lic due to their pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties. Among them are inter­nal affairs offi­cers, pros­e­cu­tors, judges, and jour­nal­ists. Some pub­li­ca­tions caused crimes to be com­mit­ted against them, includ­ing destruc­tion and dam­age to prop­er­ty and threats of vio­lence,” the offi­cial indict­ment reads.

The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee of Belarus began the “sep­a­rate pro­ceed­ings” in late Sep­tem­ber 2022. The State Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee includ­ed the defen­dants in the “list of per­sons involved in ter­ror­ist activ­i­ties,” while the Inte­ri­or Min­istry accused them of extrem­ism.

The “sep­a­rate pro­ceed­ings” is a legal know-how of the Belaru­sian regime, which has lit­tle to do with jus­tice. The defen­dants were assigned lawyers at the deci­sion of the pros­e­cu­tion, but no defen­dant received any com­mu­ni­ca­tions from their coun­sels. Also, the defen­dants were not pro­vid­ed with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to present any argu­ments (even via video link).

When sen­tenc­ing some­one in absen­tia, the author­i­ties have no lever­age to send vir­tu­al “crim­i­nals” behind bars. Nev­er­the­less, based on last year’s rad­i­cal changes in the leg­is­la­tion, the con­vict­ed “in absen­tia” may be deprived of the prop­er­ty they pos­sess in the coun­try and of their Belaru­sian cit­i­zen­ship.

Accord­ing to human rights defend­ers, Belaru­sian cit­i­zens can now be tried in absen­tia under 48 “extrem­ist” crim­i­nal arti­cles. The con­sid­er­ably amend­ed law gives free rein not only to pros­e­cu­tors and judges, but also to the agen­cies respon­si­ble for seques­ter­ing the prop­er­ty of nation­als who left the coun­try against their will.

Mean­while, on Jan­u­ary 17, a sim­i­lar tri­al in the so-called “Coor­di­nat­ing Coun­cil case” began at Min­sk City Court. Politi­cians and demo­c­ra­t­ic activists Svi­at­lana Tsi­hanouskaya, Pavel Latush­ka, Maryia Maroz, Vol­ha Kavalko­va, and Siarhei Dyleus­ki are on the vir­tu­al dock. Charges include cre­at­ing an extrem­ist for­ma­tion, orga­niz­ing mass riots, high trea­son, incit­ing enmi­ty, con­spir­a­cy to seize pow­er, and encour­ag­ing sanc­tions.