washington — A journalist with VOA’s sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on Wednesday marked 1,000 days in jail in Belarus on charges that he and his employer reject as politically motivated.
Andrey Kuznechyk, with RFE/RL’s Belarusian Service — known locally as Radio Svaboda — has been jailed in Belarus since his arrest on November 25, 2021.
He was initially sentenced to 10 days in jail on hooliganism charges, which he rejected. When Kuznechyk was due to be released, authorities kept him in prison and added an additional charge of creating an extremist group.
In a trial that lasted only one day, a regional court found Kuznechyk guilty in June 2022 and sentenced him to six years in prison.
“Belarus’ treatment of Andrey Kuznechyk is reprehensible,” RFE/RL President Stephen Capus said in a post on the social media platform X.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media, the parent organization of RFE/RL and VOA, also called for Belarus to release Kuznechyk.
“Journalism is not a crime, yet journalists around the world continue to be persecuted just for reporting the truth,” USAGM CEO Amanda Bennett told VOA in a statement. “Today sickeningly marks the 1,000th day Andrey Kuznechyk has been wrongly detained in Belarus. Every moment he spends in this hard-labor camp is one too many.”
Kuznechyk is one of several journalists and activists who have been jailed in Belarus since 2020, when President Aleksander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, claimed yet another victory in a contested presidential election. Massive protests against the disputed election were met with a severe government crackdown.
There are more than 1,400 political prisoners still held in Belarus, according to the rights group Viasna, and independent news outlets have been forced to shutter or retreat into exile. At the end of 2023, Belarus ranked third worst in the world in terms of journalist jailings, with 28 behind bars, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Kuznechyk is one of two RFE/RL journalists currently jailed in Belarus.
The second is Ihar Losik, who has been detained since June 2020, before the contested election took place. He was eventually tried behind closed doors on charges including “organization of mass riots” and “incitement of hatred” and sentenced to 15 years in prison. The charges against him are also widely viewed as bogus.
“Andrey Kuznechyk and Ihar Losik have been locked away for years, with callous disregard by Belarus,” Capus said on X.
Kuznechyk and Losik — as well as opposition leader Viktar Babaryka — are being held at Correctional Colony No. 1, which is considered one of the harshest prisons in Belarus.
The third RFE/RL journalist who is imprisoned is Vladyslav Yesypenko, who has been jailed in Russian-occupied Crimea since March 2021. He was charged with “possession and transport of explosives,” which he denies, and sentenced in a closed-door trial to six years in prison.
“Their so-called crimes?” Capus said, referring to the three jailed journalists. “Sharing journalistic words of truth.” RFE/RL calls for their immediate release, he added.
American RFE/RL journalist Alsu Kurmasheva was among the outlet’s wrongly jailed journalists until early August, when she was released from Russia as part of a historic prisoner swap between Moscow and Washington.
The Washington embassy of Belarus told VOA it had no comment for this story. The Belarusian Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment. Russia’s Washington embassy also did not immediately reply to VOA’s email requesting comment.