Iryna Levshyna

Affiliated media: BelaPAN, Editor-in-chief

Incident date: October 6, 2022

Attack type:

• Court trial

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Belarusian Association of Journalists

Location: Belarus, Minsk

Additional information:

Minsk Regional Court passed the verdict in the criminal case of the independent news agency BelaPAN. Judge Viachaslau Tuleika sentenced the editor-in-chief of BelaPAN Iryna Levshyna to four years in jail. Levshyna was accused of creating and leading an extremist formation (Part 1 of Article 361-1 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus). According to the investigation, «in 2020-2021, a group of citizens carried out the extremist activity in the form of creation and placement of materials with signs of extremism on the Internet resources of BelaPAN». The trial was held behind closed doors. The journalist was detained on August 18, 2021; she was held in pre-trial detention. In November 2021, the KGB recognized the BelaPAN news agency as an «extremist formation».