Pavel Mazheika’s sentence upheld. He is to be transferred to correctional facility soon

Pavel Karshunovich, head of the Supreme Court’s judi­cial board, con­sid­ered the appeals.

The hear­ing was held in cam­era, but fam­i­ly mem­bers were per­mit­ted to attend the announce­ment of the rul­ing.

Pavel Mazheika’s spouse, Iry­na Char­ni­ak, is cur­rent­ly resid­ing out­side of Belarus with their chil­dren. Iry­na report­ed that nei­ther she nor Pavel antic­i­pat­ed the Supreme Court to reverse or improve the ini­tial rul­ing.

“I observe com­pa­ra­ble tri­als of media employ­ees and do not expect a pos­i­tive out­come. Pavel express­es the same sen­ti­ment and antic­i­pates being trans­port­ed to the cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty by ear­ly Novem­ber.”

Dur­ing the Supreme Court hear­ing, the fam­i­ly saw that both Paul and Yulia have lost a lot of weight, but did not appear to be bro­ken.

The journalist’s fam­i­ly was already abroad when Iry­na last saw Paul via Zoom, just half an hour before his arrest on 30 August 2022. Pavel Mazhei­ka was detained upon his return to Belarus, and law enforce­ment offi­cers searched his and his par­ents’ homes after­ward.

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.

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.

Mazhei­ka was among the ear­li­est polit­i­cal detainees in Belarus, serv­ing a two-year restrict­ed free­dom sen­tence for slan­der­ing the pres­i­dent in 2002. The amnesty then reduced his sen­tence by one year.

In 2021, Pavel Mazhei­ka, artist Ales Pushkin, who died in prison recent­ly, 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 19 March 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.

Read more:

Andrei Tolchyn accused of harming Belarus’ national security

Reporters need helmets, body armor, and psychological support. What challenges do media in Israel face?

«Independent media is experiencing a business model collapse, and society is subjecting itself to self-censorship.» Highlights from the Freedom House report