Belarus's constant suppression of dozens of independent journalists fell into harsh prisons

Tallinn, Estonia (AP) – Only half of the eight-year prison sentences in Belarus have been sentenced to prison for conspiracy to overthrow the government. She was pardoned after she had fainted in the cells in a brain tumor diagnosed during pretrial detention.

“I was actually taken to a criminal colony in a wheelchair and I realized that journalism has indeed become a life-threatening career,” she told Vilnius, Lithuania where she lives.

According to activists and former prisoners, Lutskinner is one of dozens of journalists imprisoned in Belarus, where many face assaults, poor medical services and inability to contact lawyers or relatives. She compared the prison to the Soviet era.

The group reporter without borders said Belarus was the main journalist jailer in Europe. According to the Belarusian Journalists Association, at least 40 are serving their sentences.

Lutskina produced a documentary for the Berarus of State Broadcaster in 2020, when mass protests broke out after the elections – widely condemned as fraudulent – put authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in power. An attempt to establish an alternative television channel for fact-checking government officials was arrested that year, and tried and later convicted.

Other journalists fled the 9.5 million country and operated from abroad. But many people had to cut jobs after the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump cut off foreign aid, an important source of funding for many independent media.

“The journalist was forced not only to face suppression within the country, but also to be suddenly evacuated by the aid of the United States, which puts many editorial offices on the brink of survival,” BAJ Chairman Andrei Bastunets told the Associated Press.

2020 suppression

Lukashenko's brutal crackdown after the controversial election led to more than 65,000 arrests between 2020-25 years. Thousands of people were beaten by police, opposition was sentenced to jail or forced to exile, and thousands fled abroad in fear.

Belarus' leading rights group Viasna is considered to be a political prisoner of more than 1,200 people with a population of 9.5 million. Its founder, Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiaatski, is among them.

Independent journalists were also swept away, and sales stores were closed or banned. Lukashenko has been in power for thirty years, often calling them “enemies of our state” and vowed that those who fled would not be allowed to return.

“The attacks, arrests and abuses of journalists have been five years, but now they have reached a ridiculous point,” Bastunets said. Some targeted journalists' families have asked the rights groups not to speak publicly about their cases in order to avoid further retaliation.

Every month brings new arrests and searches, with almost all independent media leaving Belarus. Repression and even hit those who convert focus to non-political content.

In December, authorities arrested the entire editorial staff of the popular area publication Intex-Press, which covers local news in the city of Baranavichy. Seven journalists were accused of “assisting extremist activities.”

Extremism is the most common allegation for detention, finesse and similar-minded citizens. Even reading independent media declared extremist could lead to short-term arrests. Working with or subscribing to banned media is considered “assisting extremism” and can be sentenced to up to seven years in prison. Websites of such media are blocked.

According to Reporter Without Borders, 397 Belarusian journalists are victims of the group's unfair arrests since 2020, and some have been detained multiple times.

At least 600 people have moved abroad, the organization said. Even then, many still face pressure from authorities to open the case to them in absence, put it on the international wanted list, seize property within Belarus, and occupy target relatives in the raid.

The journalists without borders filed a lawsuit in January with the International Criminal Court, accusing Belarusian authorities of “anti-human crimes” and invoking torture, assault, imprisonment, persecution and forced displacement journalists.

Beating and Isolation

Poland – Katsiaryna Bakhvalava, a reporter from Belsat, Belsat, was arrested while reporting on the 2020 protests. He was initially sentenced to disrupt public order and sentenced to two years in prison. She was tried for treason when she was criminally colonized and convicted, and her sentence was extended by eight years and three months.

Her husband, Ihar Iliyash, was arrested in October 2024 on charges of “smearing Belarus” and sentenced to jail while awaiting trial.

Bakhvalava, 31, has been placed in a “punishment quarantine” cell several times and was defeated in 2022, according to a former prisoner.

Former political prisoner Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk, who fled to Lithuania, told reporters she heard four prison guards defeated Bakhvalava, who was crying and asking for a doctor.

Andrzej Poczobut, a correspondent to the influential Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, a famous figure in Belarus’ Poles’ Union, was sentenced to “injuring the national security of Belarus” and sentenced to eight years in prison, where he served in the Novopolotsk criminal colony.

Human rights activists say Poczobut, 52, has a serious heart disease and has been detained in isolation several times, sometimes up to six months.

At the end of March, he stayed in a punitive cell unit (the most severe form of incarceration) for six months. Warsaw's attempt to intervene failed, and Poczobut refused to ask Lukashenko for pardon.

Tut.by's editor Maryna Zolatava was also imprisoned – once the most popular online news outlet in Belarus, but authorities were shut down by authorities in 2021. Zolatava was convicted in 2023 for inciting and distributing materials to 12 years in prison for inciting and distributing national security.

Similarities to “1984”

Lukashenko expanded his rule in January's general election called farce by the opposition in January. Since July, he has pardoned more than 250 people in an attempt to improve ties with the West.

Belarusian analyst Valery Karbalevich said Lukashenko “sees political prisoners as a commodity. He is cynically willing to sell journalists and activists to Europe and the United States in exchange for easing economic sanctions and thawing relations. This process has begun.”

Shortly after Trump began his second term, Lukashenko released two U.S. citizens and a journalist, Radio Free Europe/Broadcast Free Radio, a U.S. government-funded news outlet. Two other RFE/RL journalists, Ihar Losik and Ihar Karnei, are still imprisoned and forced to record videos of repentance.

Andrey Kuznechyk, a journalist who released three years in prison, left Belarus for Lithuania.

“On the first day after the issuance, I looked at the list of journalists behind the prison and was shocked by how I grew during my incarceration,” he told the Associated Press.

Lutskina, a journalist who also fled to Lithuania, took her 14-year-old son and said he “must learn to distinguish truth from lies.” Both of them have read George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, which was banned in Belarus and found “surprising similarities” to her homeland.

“Belarus has become a gray country under a gray sky, people are afraid of everything and whispering,” she said.

Lutskina, a tumor that was treated for the tumor, said she actually had less fear in prison than Belarusians outside of her.

“They looked around and walked around, “feared to lift their eyes and see the nightmare happening around,” she said.