Glafira Zhuk

Affiliated media: Narodnaya Volya, Journalist

Incident date: May 31, 2021

Attack type:

• Court trial

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: European Radio for Belarus

Location: Belarus, Minsk

Additional information:

The Moskovsky District Court of Minsk arrested the journalist for 30 days, accusing her of participation in an «unauthorised event» (Article 24.23 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Belarus). The reason was that on May 14 she was near the courthouse, where the high-profile trial on the «students’ case» started. The law enforcers detained Glafira Zhuk on May 29 and kept her in the temporary detention centre until the trial. The conditions of detention were torturous: up to 13 people in a 2-bed cell, the prisoners were not given parcels from relatives, they were never allowed to take a shower, only once in a month Glafira was taken for a walk, and she was held in a punishment cell for two days. After Zhuk was released, she learnt that she had been expelled from the BSU journalism department. The faculty management did not consider her stay in custody a valid reason for missing exams. Zhuk was a 3rd year student.