Journalist Ihar Kazmerchak to be tried in absentia

The edi­tor of the inde­pen­dent web­site Orsha.eu has been accused of pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties and insult­ing Ali­ak­san­dr Lukashen­ka. The Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee has ini­ti­at­ed spe­cial pro­ceed­ings against him. The accu­sa­tion was report­ed on March 14 by the telegram chan­nel Spe­cial Pro­ceed­ings. Offi­cial­ly.

Ihar Kazmer­chak. Pho­to cred­it: Vias­na

The defen­dant, Ihar Kazmer­chak, was charged with pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ty, as well as insult­ing the Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Belarus.

Kazmer­chak left Belarus sev­er­al years ago, but the spe­cial pro­ceed­ings allow for a tri­al in his absence.

The jour­nal­ist was not sur­prised by the infor­ma­tion about the spe­cial pro­ceed­ings against him. In May 2022, he received an offi­cial noti­fi­ca­tion stat­ing that a crim­i­nal case had been opened against him. The case is being han­dled by the Orsha inter-dis­trict depart­ment of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee. The jour­nal­ist was want­ed in Belarus and oth­er CIS coun­tries as part of the case.

Ihar Kazmer­chak dis­cov­ered in Novem­ber 2023 that his Orsha apart­ment had been sequestered by the Vit­seb­sk Region­al Agency of State Reg­is­tra­tion and Land Cadas­tre. The Orsha Depart­ment of the Inves­tiga­tive Com­mit­tee also issued the cor­re­spond­ing order.

Today, Kazmer­chak learned that the finan­cial accounts he opened as an entre­pre­neur in Bela­gro­prom­bank were blocked. Accord­ing to the notice, the oper­a­tions are tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed.

The jour­nal­ist assumed that the crim­i­nal case against him was ini­ti­at­ed under only one arti­cle. How­ev­er, accord­ing to the report of the spe­cial pro­ceed­ings, Kazmer­chak is also charged with recruit­ing, involv­ing in, train­ing for, or pro­vid­ing assis­tance to extrem­ist activ­i­ties, as well as com­mit­ting the same actions repeat­ed­ly or with a group of peo­ple by pri­or con­spir­a­cy or using their offi­cial pow­ers.

Com­ment­ing on this per­spec­tive, Ihar Kazmer­chak stat­ed that he was unsure whether he had been rec­og­nized as an ‘extrem­ist’ or had only ‘con­tributed to extrem­ist activ­i­ty,’ accord­ing to the IC. How­ev­er, he believes that this already allows decent peo­ple to look into his eyes with­out shame, as many decent peo­ple are rec­og­nized as ‘extrem­ists’ today.   He also stat­ed that he has no objec­tion to being tried in absen­tia and even allows him­self to be shot in absen­tia.

On 13 March 2024, it was revealed that crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings had been ini­ti­at­ed against Uladz­imir Khilmanovich for his involve­ment in jour­nal­is­tic and human rights activ­i­ties, along with Kazmer­chak.