WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s Foreign Ministry summoned Belarus’ chargé d’affaires thursday to express his thoughts after a journalist who had worked for Polish media outlets was sentenced to five years in prison by a Belarusian court.
Ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina said poland’s considerations on the remedy of news hounds and the Polish minority in Belarus were raised at the meeting.
Journalist Iryna Slaunikava was sentenced on Wednesday. His arrest last year came amid a broader crackdown on independent media following mass protests against the disputed 2020 election. The country’s electoral commission gave President Alexander Lukashenko a sixth term in a vote widely described as rigged.
The condemnation of the Slaunikava Committee to Protect Journalists is “another example of the deeply cynical and vindictive nature of the Belarusian government. “
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the leader of the Belarusian opposition, tweeted Wednesday that she felt “unhappy and angry” about the sentence.
“We will have to do everything we can for our independent hounds who threaten everything to report the truth,” said Tsikhanouskaya, who lives outdoors in Belarus.
Jasina said the Belarusian diplomat told Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau that his government’s court cases in Poland are interference in Belarus’ internal affairs.
Slaunikava had worked in the afterlife for Belsat, a state-funded Polish station broadcasting in Belarus.
It uncovered guilt for “organizing or participating in serious violations of public order” and “creating an extremist group,” according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, mentioning media and human rights officials.
The Polish minority in Belarus, which is represented through an industrial union independent of the Minsk government, has also been subject to Lukashenko’s crackdown, exacerbating tensions between neighbors.