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  • Journalist Jauhen Merkis is in detention, searches are underway in connection with his criminal case

    Journalist and local historian Jauhen Merkis from Homel was detained on September 13. The policemen also searched the apartment Jauhen rents and seized data carriers.

    On the same day, the home of the journalist’s friend Svi­at­lana Kast­sen­ka was also searched. The woman works at the Cen­ter for Inclu­sive Cul­ture and vol­un­teers at the Say Yes to Life orga­ni­za­tion that unites peo­ple with can­cer. The search was con­duct­ed in the case under part 1 of Art. 361 of the Crim­i­nal Code – calls for sanc­tions or oth­er actions aimed at harm­ing the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus. The max­i­mum pun­ish­ment for this crime is six years of impris­on­ment.

    On Sep­tem­ber 14, a search was also held in the apart­ment of Jauhen Merkis’ father.

    Jauhen Merkis used to coop­er­ate with the Bel­sat TV chan­nel, broad­cast the ral­lies against the tax on unem­ploy­ment in 2017, and cov­ered post-elec­tions protests of 2020. He was repeat­ed­ly arrest­ed by the police, fined by the courts, and detained.

    When a num­ber of inde­pen­dent mass media out­lets were rec­og­nized as extrem­ist for­ma­tions, Jauhen chose to engage in local his­to­ry activ­i­ties and received a tour guide cer­tifi­cate.

    Repressions against journalists in Belarus 2022, list of colleagues in prison

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