Solidarity Marathon: Italian journalist supports political prisoner Valeryia Kastsiuhova

Ital­ian jour­nal­ist Mas­si­m­il­iano Coc­cia, rep­re­sent­ing the news­pa­per linkiesta.it, has pro­vid­ed spon­sor­ship for Valeryia Kast­si­uho­va, the founder and edi­tor of the expert com­mu­ni­ty web­site Nashe Mne­nie, as well as the edi­tor and author of the Belorussky Ezhe­god­nik and head of the expert mon­i­tor­ing group Belarus in Focus.

Mas­si­m­il­iano Coccia’s post on his per­son­al Insta­gram page. Screen­shot

He was one of the indi­vid­u­als who respond­ed to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists’ call to action, high­light­ing the plight of jour­nal­ists and intel­lec­tu­als impris­oned in Belarus for polit­i­cal rea­sons. Cur­rent­ly, 33 media pro­fes­sion­als are incar­cer­at­ed.

Valeryia Kast­si­uho­va was tak­en into cus­tody on June 30, 2021, fol­low­ing a search of her res­i­dence. She was sen­tenced to 10 years’ impris­on­ment for incit­ing actions that could harm the nation­al secu­ri­ty of the Repub­lic of Belarus, con­spir­a­cy to seize pow­er by uncon­sti­tu­tion­al means, and incit­ing hatred or dis­cord.

Valeryia Kast­si­uho­va is serv­ing her sen­tence in a cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty for women in Homel.

 

 

 

 

 

Посмотреть эту публикацию в Insta­gram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Публикация от Mas­si­m­il­iano Coc­cia (@maxcoccia)

BAJ calls on jour­nal­ists around the world to sup­port the sol­i­dar­i­ty action! You can print por­traits of impris­oned Belaru­sian media work­ers, take pic­tures with them in out­stand­ing places in your city (out­side Belarus), and post them on social media using the hash­tags #СвабодуЖурналістам and #BecauseThe­Jour­nal­ist. Don’t for­get to send them to office@baj.media or intercomm@baj.media.

Since the begin­ning of the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Marathon cam­paign, 37 actions have occurred in 27 cities across 23 coun­tries and almost all con­ti­nents. The per­se­cu­tion of Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists is now known not only in Europe, Cana­da, and the Unit­ed States, but also in Latin Amer­i­ca, Aus­tralia, and in coun­tries in Africa and Asia.

The Sol­i­dar­i­ty Marathon was hon­ored to have the fol­low­ing orga­ni­za­tions join us: the Euro­pean Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (EFJ), the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (IFJ), the Inter­na­tion­al Free­dom of Expres­sion Exchange (IFEX), Reporters With­out Bor­ders, the Dan­ish Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee, Index on Cen­sor­ship, the Aus­tralian Media, Enter­tain­ment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), the Swedish PEN, and jour­nal­ist unions from Lithua­nia, Swe­den, Fin­land, and the Belaru­sian dias­po­ra in var­i­ous coun­tries.