Journalist Pavel Mazheika sentenced to six years in prison

Pavel and Yulia were accused of repeat­ed­ly pro­mot­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties as a group pri­or to con­spir­a­cy. They faced charges for send­ing infor­ma­tion to the Bel­sat TV chan­nel dur­ing Feb­ru­ary-March 2022. The chan­nel was pre­vi­ous­ly declared an extrem­ist for­ma­tion.

The defen­dants were appre­hend­ed on August 30, 2022. The case details were unknown for a while because the par­tic­i­pants and attor­neys had to agree not to dis­close any infor­ma­tion. Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions declared Pavel a polit­i­cal pris­on­er on Sep­tem­ber 20, 2022. His release was also demand­ed by the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists.

Just before the tri­al on June 17, Pavel’s lawyer, Ali­ak­san­dr Biry­lau, who had once defend­ed jour­nal­ist Andrzej Poc­zobut, was dis­barred.

The pub­lic was ini­tial­ly allowed to attend the tri­al of Pavel Mazhei­ka and Yulia Yurhile­vich, which began on July 10. How­ev­er, just before the defen­dants’ final state­ments, the tri­al was closed to pro­tect the pri­va­cy of an IT spe­cial­ist who was sched­uled to tes­ti­fy in court.

The case file states that Pavel Mazhei­ka, with Yulia Yurhilevich’s help, pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion in Feb­ru­ary and March 2022 about Yulia’s revoked law license and expul­sion from the Hrod­na Region­al Bar Asso­ci­a­tion, and report­ed on artist Ales Pushkin’s tri­al.

Yulia Yurhile­vich has been a lawyer for near­ly 18 years. She rep­re­sent­ed polit­i­cal pris­on­ers, includ­ing Ales Pushkin, Art­siom Bayars­ki, Ihar Bantsar, Andrei Asiye­vich, and Andrei Sakalous­ki.

The Hrod­na Region­al Bar Asso­ci­a­tion expelled her on Feb­ru­ary 23, 2022 for “vio­lat­ing the law repeat­ed­ly.” She has been held in cus­tody for over ten months.

Pavel Mazhei­ka is a well-known jour­nal­ist and pub­lic fig­ure in Hrod­na. A web­site devot­ed to his work was cre­at­ed after he was tak­en into cus­tody.

In 2021, Pavel Mazhei­ka, artist Ales Pushkin, and oth­ers were accused of actions pro­mot­ing Nazism, and a crim­i­nal case was opened against them. Accord­ing to the prosecutor’s office, the por­trait of Yauhen Zhykhar, a Belaru­sian activist who opposed the Sovi­et Union, was dis­played at a paint­ing exhi­bi­tion on March 19, 2021 with a machine gun on his shoul­der. These actions were aimed at the reha­bil­i­ta­tion and jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of Nazism. Mazhei­ka was released lat­er because there were no suf­fi­cient grounds for deten­tion.

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