Support for Politically Incarcerated Journalists Irina Levshina and Andrei Aleksandrov

“Judge” Vyach­eslav Tulei­ka sen­tenced the direc­tor — edi­tor-in-chief of Bela­PAN, Iri­na Lev­shi­na, to 4 years of impris­on­ment in a gen­er­al regime colony and the for­mer deputy direc­tor Andrey Alek­san­drov to 14 years of rein­forced regime. Andrei was also fined 1000 basic units (32 thou­sand rubles).

They are accused of cre­at­ing an extrem­ist for­ma­tion, which the KGB con­sid­ers Bela­PAN jour­nal­ists. Alek­san­drov is also accused of “trea­son against the state”, fail­ure to pay tax­es on a par­tic­u­lar­ly large scale and prepa­ra­tion of cit­i­zens to par­tic­i­pate in the riots under Part 2 Arti­cle 342, which was expressed in the pay­ment of fines to the pro­test­ers.

The tri­al was held behind closed doors, so no details of the process are unknown to the pub­lic.

Iry­na Lev­shy­na worked at Bela­PAN almost from the moment of its foun­da­tion in 1991. She has always adhered to the prin­ci­ples of hon­esty and free­dom of speech. In court Iri­na had a pow­er­ful last word. She plead­ed not guilty and stat­ed that she would con­tin­ue to tell peo­ple the truth — now ver­bal­ly. She is con­vinced that truth can­not be state or non-state, and that jour­nal­ists should not be ser­vice per­son­nel.

Andrei Alek­san­drov is a jour­nal­ist and media man­ag­er, for­mer deputy direc­tor of Bela­PAN. 

He start­ed his career as a jour­nal­ist in Navap­o­latsk at the non-state news­pa­per Khimik. In 2011, Andrei won a pres­ti­gious Chevening schol­ar­ship from the British For­eign Office, on which he went to study media man­age­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of West­min­ster. He then worked in Lon­don at the offices of the human rights orga­ni­za­tions Index on Cen­sor­ship and Arti­cle 19, but in 2014 he left the qui­et life in Lon­don to make a film about the events in Don­bass. After that, Andrei returned to Belarus, where he worked as deputy direc­tor of Bela­PAN from 2014 to 2018.

Andrei has been a loy­al fan of Liv­er­pool soc­cer club for many years. In prison, he sings the song You’ll Nev­er Walk Alone, known as the Liv­er­pool anthem, every day to lift his spir­its. Andrei even trans­lat­ed it into Belaru­sian, call­ing it “You’ll Nev­er Walk Alone.”

How much is needed?

5000€ — Sup­port for Polit­i­cal­ly Incar­cer­at­ed Jour­nal­ists. 

Donate now

• Sto­ry

Dai­ly Star: Jour­nal­ist fac­ing 15 years in jail sings ‘You’ll Nev­er Walk Alone’ in his cell every day.

Index on cen­sor­ship: «You’ll Nev­er Walk Alone» The words that com­fort Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau