Andrei Karelin

Affiliated media: Freelance journalist

Incident date: November 12, 2021

Attack type:

• Non-fatal attack / beating / injury / torture

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Belarusian Association of Journalists

Location: Belarus, Babruisk

Additional information:

At 6 AM, law enforcers came to the journalist’s home with a search in a criminal case for insulting an official. They seized his laptop and phone. After that, they took him to the police station, where the law enforcers were interested in the content of the journalist’s social networks. As a result of studying his equipment, they found in the Instagram archive a photo with the logo of the media outlet declared extremist in Belarus. They drew up a report under Part 2 of Article 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offences (distribution of extremist materials or storage with the purpose of distribution). He was kept in the detention centre for three days until the trial. On November 15, the court arrested Karelin for 12 days. The journalist was held in a «bear cage» for about 10 hours. «It’s very cold there. I drank water from the tap when they took me to the toilet. I was brought there after dinner, so I spent more than a day without food», — Karelin said.