Journalist Ihar Karnei to face trial on March 19

Ihar Karnei. Pho­to cred­it: RFE/RL Belarus

The court hear­ing will start at 10 a.m. in Min­sk City Court. Judge Siarhei Kat­sar will pre­side over the case. Ihar Karnei is accused of par­tic­i­pat­ing in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion and faces up to six years of impris­on­ment.

The jour­nal­ist was arrest­ed on 17 July 2023 after a search of his apart­ment. Dur­ing the search, law enforce­ment offi­cials seized a com­put­er and oth­er dig­i­tal devices.

Ihar Karnei has been work­ing in jour­nal­ism since his stu­dent years. In the late 1980s, with friends and like-mind­ed indi­vid­u­als, he co-found­ed an inde­pen­dent youth news­pa­per Lid­er in Orsha. He also con­tributed to Znamya Yunos­ti, Kras­naya Sme­na, and Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da news­pa­pers. From 1991, he worked at Zvyaz­da news­pa­per. Between 1994 and 2000, he served as a cor­re­spon­dent for the week­ly Svo­bod­nye Novosti. In 2000, he joined the RFE/RL Belarus office. Recent­ly, he has been work­ing as a free­lance jour­nal­ist.

Ihar Karnei was also arrest­ed dur­ing a peace­ful march in Min­sk on 15 Novem­ber 2020 and sen­tenced to 10 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion.