Ihar Ilyash

Affiliated media: Freelance journalist

Incident date: February 21, 2025

Attack type:

• Prosecution for extremism, links with terrorists, inciting hatred, high treason, calling for the overthrow of the constitutional order, rehabilitation of Nazism (2)

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Belarusian Association of Journalists

Location: Belarus, Minsk

Additional information:

Proceedings in the case of journalist Ihar Ilyash have begun at the Minsk City Court. He has been charged with “discrediting the Republic of Belarus” (Article 369-1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus) and with “aiding extremist activity” (Part 2 of Article 361-4 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus). The journalist faces up to six years’ imprisonment. The trial is being presided over by Judge Sergei Katsar. The journalist’s detention became known on 22 October 2024. In a police video, he said that he had previously worked for the Belsat TV channel and later became a freelancer, that he had given interviews to media outlets designated as “extremist formations” and to foreign media. Ilyash is a journalist and the husband of Belsat TV journalist Katsyaryna Andreeva, who in July 2022 was sentenced to eight years and three months in a penal colony on charges of “treason”.