Ihar Baranousky

Affiliated media: Newspaper Tsarkva, Editor

Incident date: November 2, 2022

Attack type:

• Administrative arrest, remand, pre-trial detention, prison

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Belarusian Association of Journalists

Location: Belarus, Brest

Additional information:

Law enforcement officers detained the editor of the newspaper Tsarkva Ihar Baranousky and placed him in a temporary detention facility for two days until trial. He was charged with the distribution of extremist materials (Part 2 of Article 19.11 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Republic of Belarus). On November 4, the Leninsky District Court of Brest (judge Andrei Grushko) found Ihar Baranousky guilty on the basis of a police report and arrested him for 15 days. The reason for the prosecution was a post on the Facebook page of the newspaper, posted in May 2021. That post on the social network contained a video by the Belsat TV channel. Meanwhile, the Belarusian authorities recognized the materials of Belsat as «extremist» only in July 2021.