Anatol Sanatsenka

Affiliated media: Babruysk Courier, Editor-in-chief

Incident date: September 27, 2022

Attack type:

• Non-fatal attack / beating / injury / torture

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Belarusian Association of Journalists

Location: Belarus, Babruysk

Additional information:

The editor-in-chief of the online newspaper Babruysk Courier Anatol Sanatsenka was not released after administrative arrest. He was detained again, and the judge of the court of the Babruysk district and the Babruysk city Hanna Asipenka arrested the journalist for another 15 days. He was not allowed to use the services of a lawyer. Only a month after Sanatsenka’s release, it became known that he was accused of distributing extremist materials (Part 2 of Article 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Belarus). When the law enforcers seized his equipment during the search, they found two links to the websites declared extremist by the Belarusian authorities in his personal correspondence. It also became known that torture conditions were created for him: during all 30 days, Sanatsenka was kept in a punishment cell with the heating turned off, he slept on the cold floor. When he complained of kidney pain, the paramedic refused to refer him to a doctor.