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  • Why are three Belarusian journalists in jail and what punishment do they face?

    Three Belarusian journalists — Katsiaryna Barysevich from TUT.BY, Daria Chultsova and Katsiaryna Andreyeva from "Belsat" are in custody now, on criminal charges. Barysevich quoted an emergency hospital doctor and medical records when reporting that Raman Bandarenka was sober when taken to hospital — and was charged with disclosing medical secrets, "which led to serious consequences". Andreyeva and Chultsova were livestreaming from the Square of Change — and have been charged with organizing and preparing actions that seriously breach public order. TUT.BY is telling their stories, what their criminal cases are about, where they are now and what their colleagues know them for.

    Katsiaryna Andreyeva, Daria Chultsova and Katsiaryna Barysevich

    Katsiaryna Andreyeva, Belsat: livestreamer from street protests and author of a book about Donbass

    Four weeks ago, Kat­siary­na Andreye­va turned 27, she has been work­ing with Bel­sat TV since 2017.

    Her real last name is Bakhvala­va, Andreye­va is a cre­ative pseu­do­nym that the jour­nal­ist took in hon­or of her father, Siarhei Vahanau, a jour­nal­ist and Kat­siary­na’s grand­fa­ther, told Nasha Niva.

    She was detained in the evening of Novem­ber 15. That Sun­day, hun­dreds of peo­ple came to the «Square of Change», a court­yard, where Raman Ban­daren­ka was arrest­ed and lat­er a spon­ta­neous memo­r­i­al to him was formed. For sev­er­al hours, Kat­siary­na, togeth­er with her video­g­ra­ph­er Daria Chultso­va, were stream­ing from the Square: they showed how peo­ple gath­er, secu­ri­ty forces dri­ve up and car­ry out deten­tions, and then destroy the peo­ple’s memo­r­i­al.

    As the jour­nal­ist’s hus­band Ihar Ilyash told Medusa, Kati­s­ary­na was invit­ed by «con­cerned peo­ple who lived on the 14th floor and offered her a chance to livestream from their win­dows.» The jour­nal­ist spent 5.5 hours there. After dis­pers­ing the pro­test­ers, the secu­ri­ty forces broke the door of the apart­ment and detained every­one who was there.

    On Novem­ber 17, Andreye­va was con­vict­ed on two admin­is­tra­tive charges: for par­tic­i­pa­tion in an unau­tho­rized mass event and dis­obey­ing the demands of police offi­cers, and received 7 days of arrest. The police report stat­ed that she had been detained «on the side­walk near the road­way», where she «active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the ral­ly».

    But on Novem­ber 20, it turned out that Kat­siary­na would not be released in 7 days: she was charged under part 1 of arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code — «Orga­ni­za­tion and prepa­ra­tion of actions that gross­ly breach pub­lic order, or active par­tic­i­pa­tion in them.» For the time of inves­ti­ga­tion, Kat­siary­na was put in cus­tody for 2 months — until Jan­u­ary 20, 2021.

    At the moment, she is in a pre-tri­al deten­tion facil­i­ty in Zhodz­i­na. If found guilty, she could face a fine, arrest, restric­tion of free­dom for up to three years or impris­on­ment for the same peri­od.

    The pro­fes­sion­al com­mu­ni­ty knows Andreye­va as a lead­ing street livestream­er, she’s been repeat­ed­ly detained and penal­ized for her pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties. She also inves­ti­gat­ed cor­rup­tion cas­es, and wrote about the war in the Don­bass — this year in Kiev, she pub­lished a book Belaru­sian Don­bass that she co-authored with her hus­band.

     

    Daria Chultsova, Belsat videographer

    Daria Chultso­va is 23. She has been work­ing with Bel­sat since the begin­ning of 2019, judg­ing by her Face­book pro­file. Her home city is Mahil­iou. On Novem­ber 15, she worked as a video­g­ra­ph­er togeth­er with Kat­siary­na Andreye­va, film­ing from an apart­ment win­dow the events on the Square of Change.

     

     

    That evening, she was detained togeth­er with Andreye­va and tak­en to Akrestsi­na deten­tion cen­ter. The next day she was tried and sen­tenced to 7 days in jail. We learned about a crim­i­nal case against her only when Daria had not been released after her admin­is­tra­tive arrest. Her lawyer did not report on this, as he had to sign a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment.

    On Novem­ber 30, thanks to the appeal against cus­tody as a mea­sure of restraint, it became known that Daria Chultso­va had been charged under the same arti­cle — part 1 of arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code.

    At the moment, 23-year-old Daria Chultso­va is in the Zhodi­no pre-tri­al deten­tion facil­i­ty. It is not known how long she will remain in cus­tody.

     

    Katsiaryna Barysevich — TUT.BY reporter. Legal issues are her main field, she received a «Winner’s Diploma» from the Prosecutor General’s office in 2015.

    Bary­se­vich was last online on Novem­ber 19 at 16.59. Around this time, she was detained by offi­cers in plain clothes and masks, who searched her apart­ment and took her to the KGB pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter.

    As it became known a lit­tle lat­er, the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s office opened a crim­i­nal case for an arti­cle about the con­di­tion of the deceased Raman Ban­daren­ka, who was tak­en to an unknown des­ti­na­tion from the Square of Changes on Novem­ber 12, and lat­er tak­en to the emer­gency hos­pi­tal with seri­ous injuries, where he died less than a day lat­er. Cit­ing the doc­tors, Kat­siary­na wrote that at the time he reached the hos­pi­tal, Raman was sober, refut­ing the words of law-enforce­ment agen­cies that Ban­daren­ka had alleged­ly had «alco­hol intox­i­ca­tion».

    On the same evening, on Novem­ber 19, the emer­gency hos­pi­tal anes­the­si­ol­o­gist Art­siom Sarokin was detained. Accord­ing to the Pros­e­cu­tor’s Gen­er­al Office, «act­ing inten­tion­al­ly, the sus­pect entered into crim­i­nal col­lu­sion with a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of an online resource (tut.by), and informed it about the results of the med­ical exam­i­na­tion of Raman Ban­daren­ka.»

    Both became defen­dants in the crim­i­nal case under part 3 of arti­cle 178 of the Crim­i­nal code — «Dis­clo­sure of med­ical secrets that led to seri­ous con­se­quences» (pos­si­ble penal­ty — impris­on­ment for up to three years and depri­va­tion of the right to hold cer­tain posi­tions).

    Mean­while, the fam­i­ly of the deceased Ban­daren­ka did not com­plain about dis­clo­sure by either the media or the med­ical staff of the hos­pi­tal. Ale­na Ban­daren­ka, Raman’s moth­er, approved dis­tri­b­u­tion of infor­ma­tion about her son’s con­di­tion.

    Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich spent sev­er­al days in the KGB pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter, and on Novem­ber 20, her first inter­ro­ga­tion took place. A week lat­er, she was trans­ferred to pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter No. 1 on Val­adars­ki Street. The Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s Office pressed charges and left her in cus­tody, thus choos­ing the most severe mea­sure of restraint.

    Her lawyers had to sign a non-dis­clo­sure agree­ment in the broad­est sense pos­si­ble, so we do not know any­thing about the cir­cum­stances of the case, or even about how long Kat­siary­na will remain in cus­tody. We can assume that she will be there for two months, that is, until Jan­u­ary 19, 2021, judg­ing by reg­u­lar prac­tice.

    Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich is 36, she has been a jour­nal­ist for almost 15 years, spe­cial­iz­ing in legal issues: high-pro­file crim­i­nal cas­es and court pro­ceed­ings. So, thanks to her, hun­dreds of thou­sands of read­ers learned details about the res­o­nant «doc­tors’ case» and «sug­ar case», where a plane had to turn around and land back in Belarus, got acquaint­ed with the home­land of the for­mer KGB Chair­man Valery Vakulchyk, fol­lowed the fate of the MZKT engi­neer, and empathized with those who were detained on August 9–12 and sur­vived vio­lence by the secu­ri­ty forces.

    While study­ing at the fac­ul­ty of jour­nal­ism of the BSU, Kat­siary­na worked for The First Chan­nel of the Belaru­sian radio, and joined Euro­ra­dio after her grad­u­a­tion. For nine years, Kate­ri­na was a colum­nist for Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da in Belarus, and at the begin­ning of 2017, she joined TUT.BY.

    Kat­siary­na repeat­ed­ly became the win­ner of many pro­fes­sion­al com­pe­ti­tions. In par­tic­u­lar, in 2015, the Pros­e­cu­tor Gen­er­al’s office award­ed her the win­ner’s diplo­ma «for pro­fes­sion­al­ism and jour­nal­is­tic skills». This year, the agency srat­ed a crim­i­nal case against her for her pro­fes­sion­al activ­i­ties.

     

    What was the response to the arrests and criminal cases against journalists?

    Belaru­sian human rights defend­ers rec­og­nized Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich, Kat­siary­na Andreye­va and Daria Chultso­va polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. In their opin­ion, the cas­es against teh jour­nal­ists were arbi­trary and polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed. Human rights activists demand to imme­di­ate­ly release the jour­nal­ists from cus­tody and stop their crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion. At the moment, more than 160 peo­ple have been rec­og­nized as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Belarus.

    The Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists has sim­i­lar demands. In its state­ment, BAJ demands to imme­di­ate­ly release the jour­nal­ists, to stop their crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion and to bring those respon­si­ble for vio­lat­ing the rights of jour­nal­ists and cit­i­zens to jus­tice.

    Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al rec­og­nized jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich and anes­the­si­ol­o­gist Art­siom Sarokin pris­on­ers of con­science.

    — They are both pris­on­ers of con­science, detained sole­ly for the exer­cise of their right to free­dom of expres­sion, and must be imme­di­ate­ly and uncon­di­tion­al­ly released and the crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings against them end­ed, Amnesty Inter­na­tion­al states,

    call­ing the doc­tor and the jour­nal­ist whistle­blow­ers who exposed dis­in­for­ma­tion.

    UK For­eign Sec­re­tary Dominic Raab called on the Belaru­sian author­i­ties to release impris­oned jour­nal­ists . The For­eign Sec­re­tary also urged to drop all charges against jour­nal­ists. He not­ed that reporters are impris­oned in order to silence them and pre­vent the dis­sem­i­na­tion of infor­ma­tion about a vio­la­tion of rights and free­doms of the Belaru­sian peo­ple.

    Accord­ing to BAJ esti­mates, Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists have been detained almost 370 times since August 9.

    You can sup­port jour­nal­ists behind bars by writ­ing let­ters to them. You can send them to the fol­low­ing address­es:

    • Kat­siary­na Bary­se­vich — 220030 Min­sk, Val­adars­ki street, 2; SIZO No. 1;
    • Kat­siary­na Bakhvala­va — 222160 Zhodz­i­na, Savet­skaya street, 22A;
    • Daria Chultso­va — Zhodz­i­na 222160, Savet­skaya street, 22A.

    Читать полностью: https://news.tut.by/society/709616.html?c

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