Pavel Padabed

Affiliated media: Freelance videographer

Incident date: January 23, 2023

Attack type:

• Prosecution for extremism, links with terrorists, inciting hatred, high treason, calling for the overthrow of the constitutional order, rehabilitation of Nazism (2)

Who attacked: Authorities

Source: Belarusian Association of Journalists

Location: Belarus, Minsk

Additional information:

A criminal case under the article «assistance to extremist activity» was opened against freelance videographer Pavel Padabed. On January 20, the journalist stopped getting in touch. Padabed confirmed the fact of his detention in a telephone conversation with his relatives. He only had time to inform his relatives that his apartment had been searched. From the look of the apartment, the relatives concluded that the computer and other media had disappeared, including the telephone he had with him. In the 72 hours since his arrest, Padabed has still not been released. On January 31, Viasna reported that Padabed was arrested for 15 days and convicted under an administrative article for distributing «extremist» materials. Later, it became known that he was not released after 15 days of administrative arrest, but was taken into custody and placed in pre-trial detention facility № 1 in Minsk.