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  • Journalist Yauhen Merkis makes shoes in prison

    Yauhen Merkis joined the workforce in prison. He can only correspond with his father and his right to monthly calls has been restricted, as per human rights activist Leanid Sudalenka, who shared this information about the journalist on his Facebook page.

    sudalenko.jpg

    “Yauhen works in a shop that pro­duces boots for con­victs and police offi­cers. He’s not expe­ri­enc­ing any health prob­lems and keeps in touch with his father. (His moth­er passed away and he’s a wid­ow­er.) They dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­i­ty of him receiv­ing a care pack­age, which is allowed once every four months and is lim­it­ed to 50 kilo­grams. Phone calls aren’t allowed yet. He’s doing well and liv­ing a typ­i­cal life in his cur­rent sit­u­a­tion. Dur­ing his free time, he reads and watch­es TV. Recent­ly, some his­to­ri­an vis­it­ed the cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty to give a lec­ture.”

    Yauhen Merkis is a jour­nal­ist from Homel. He used to coop­er­ate with the Bel­sat TV chan­nel, broad­cast the ral­lies against the tax on unem­ploy­ment in 2017, and cov­ered post-elec­tion protests of 2020. He was repeat­ed­ly arrest­ed by the police, fined by the courts, and detained. Over­all, Eugene was con­demned to 50 days of admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion and $1,950 for his work as a jour­nal­ist.

    On 13 Sep­tem­ber 2022, he was tak­en into cus­tody for involve­ment in extrem­ist for­ma­tions and the pro­mo­tion of extrem­ist activ­i­ty. He is serv­ing a four-year prison term, notes the human rights defend­er.

    Novem­ber 8 marked Yauhen’s sec­ond birth­day cel­e­bra­tion behind bars. To show sup­port for the jour­nal­ist, you can send let­ters or post­cards to:

    IK-17, 213004 Shk­lou, vul. 1‑ya Zavad­skaya, Merkis Yevge­ny Alek­san­drovich.

    Read more:

    A charter on the use of artificial intelligence was created in Paris. Ten commandments for journalists

    Bialystok: Keeping touch burning for imprisoned journalists

    The Internet Governance Forum aims to legitimize suppression of free speech

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