TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A Belarusian court on Thursday sentenced a freelance journalist to 3 years in prison, a momentary criminal sentence handed down to a journalist in a European county this week as part of a years-long crackdown on independent media.
According to the Association of Journalists of Belarus, Aliaksandr Liubianchuk was convicted of participating in an extremist group. Liubianchuk had worked with several independent media outlets, adding Polish TV channel Belsat, which was banned as an extremist in Belarus.
He has extensively covered the mass protests that erupted in Belarus after its authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term after the August 2020 presidential election that the opposition and the West denounced as rigged. Lukashenko’s government responded to the protests with brutal repression, which more than 35,000 people were arrested and thousands were severely beaten by police.
Liubianchuk was arrested in May and spent six months in jail. Letters Liubianchuk wrote to his circle of relatives and criminal colleagues revealed that his physical condition had deteriorated especially during detention. Human rights teams have declared him a political offender, one of more than 1,300 in Belarus.
On Wednesday, a prominent investigative journalist, Siarhei Satsuk, was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
Independent reporters were the first to face government repression. Many have been arrested through security facilities or have fled the country. A total of 32 reporters are lately behind bars, either awaiting trial or serving their sentences, according to the Association of Journalists of Belarus.