Pro-government TV journalists recorded an «interview» with the politically imprisoned journalist Ihar Karnei

The pro-gov­ern­ment TV chan­nel ONT con­tin­ues its series of broad­casts «about employ­ees of the Amer­i­can media». After the episodes about Andrei Kuznechyk and Ihar Losik, the pro­pa­gan­dists announced a video fea­tur­ing free­lance jour­nal­ist Ihar Karnei. It will be aired on the evening of Jan­u­ary 16.

Ihar Karnei. Screen­shot: BAJ

The case of Ihar Karnei

Ihar Karnei worked as a jour­nal­ist for almost four decades: he was one of the founders of the inde­pen­dent youth news­pa­per «Lid­er» in Orsha dur­ing his stu­dent years. Lat­er, he worked for news­pa­pers such as «Znamya yunos­ti», «Chyr­vona zme­na», and «Kom­so­mol­skaya Prav­da». From 1991, he worked for the news­pa­per «Zvyaz­da». From 1994 to 2000, he was a cor­re­spon­dent for the inde­pen­dent week­ly «Svo­bod­nye novosti». Since 2000 he worked as a jour­nal­ist for Radio Svabo­da. In recent years, he became inter­est­ed in local his­to­ry and blog­ging, writ­ing arti­cles for the local his­to­ry web­site «Kreva.Travel».

Ihar Karnei was arrest­ed on July 17, 2023. Ini­tial­ly, he was detained for 10 days with­in an admin­is­tra­tive case. Lat­er, he was charged with a crim­i­nal offense and trans­ferred to a deten­tion cen­ter.

The Belaru­sian human rights com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized him as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

On March 22, 2024, Judge Siarhei Katser of the Min­sk City Court sen­tenced Ihar Karnei to three years in a gen­er­al-secu­ri­ty penal colony and a fine of 20,000 rubles, find­ing him «guilty» under part 3 of Arti­cle 361–1 of the Crim­i­nal Code (par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tion).

Dur­ing the tri­al of Ihar Karnei, state media claimed that he alleged­ly coop­er­at­ed with the «extrem­ist» orga­ni­za­tion «Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists» out of ide­o­log­i­cal and polit­i­cal hos­til­i­ty. In Feb­ru­ary 2023, the KGB had rec­og­nized the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion.»

On Decem­ber 13, 2023, the Shk­lou Dis­trict Court found polit­i­cal pris­on­er Ihar Karnei guilty of gross­ly dis­obey­ing the demands of the admin­is­tra­tion of penal colony No. 17 under part 1 of Arti­cle 411 of the Crim­i­nal Code.

As pun­ish­ment, Judge Aliaksandr Tarakanau added 10 months to Karnei’s sen­tence.

Who is the propagandist recording «interviews» with political prisoners?

Pro­pa­gan­dist Andrei Aliaksan­drau. Screen­shot from the video

Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, a pro­pa­gan­dist, was born in the ear­ly 1990s in the Stolin dis­trict. His real sur­name is Kozel. As report­ed by Nasha Niva, he stud­ied at the jour­nal­ism fac­ul­ty of BSU under his orig­i­nal sur­name.

«A qui­et guy, joked a lot in the com­pa­ny. Not at all a blood­thirsty pro­pa­gan­dist. But his deter­mi­na­tion was quite obvi­ous: he want­ed to work in TV, he did his intern­ship there, and it seemed the oppor­tu­ni­ty to secure a job under the regime was stronger than his own dig­ni­ty. That’s why it was sur­pris­ing to watch this trans­for­ma­tion, as Andrei wasn’t stu­pid or mali­cious,» said his class­mates about Kozel-Ali­ak­san­drau.

Kozel joined ONT in 2015. In an inter­view with a pro-gov­ern­ment pub­li­ca­tion, the TV chan­nel’s spe­cial cor­re­spon­dent men­tioned that one of his favorite books was George Orwell’s «Ani­mal Farm.» It is clear that the pro­pa­gan­dist had read the dystopi­an nov­el care­less­ly.

Call­ing him­self a jour­nal­ist, he trav­eled with secu­ri­ty forces dur­ing polit­i­cal arrests.

Accord­ing to some sources, in 2020, the pro­pa­gan­dist spent some time «intern­ing» with the pro-gov­ern­ment Telegram chan­nel «Yel­low Plums.»