Trial of journalist Ihar Ilyash paused as publications undergo examination

The Min­sk City Court has announced a pause in the crim­i­nal tri­al of jour­nal­ist Ihar Ilyash. The tri­al began on Feb­ru­ary 21, with three court ses­sions held so far.

Ihar Ilyash. Pho­to: svaboda.org

Ilyash is accused of “dis­cred­it­ing the Repub­lic of Belarus” and “facil­i­tat­ing extrem­ist activ­i­ties”. Under these charges, he faces up to six years in prison.

Accord­ing to media reports, Ilyash’s ana­lyt­i­cal pub­li­ca­tions have been sent for exam­i­na­tion, which will be con­duct­ed by PhD Siarhei Lebi­adzin­s­ki, head of the depart­ment at the Fac­ul­ty of Philol­o­gy of Belaru­sian State Uni­ver­si­ty. The court denied the journalist’s request for the exam­i­na­tion to be car­ried out by the State Cen­ter for Foren­sic Exam­i­na­tions.

Ihar Ilyash’s arrest

Ihar Ilyash was arrest­ed on Octo­ber 22, 2024.

At the time, pro-gov­ern­ment Telegram chan­nels claimed that the jour­nal­ist was alleged­ly “assist­ing extrem­ist for­ma­tions” by giv­ing inter­views to inde­pen­dent media and “gath­er­ing intel­li­gence for for­eign agen­cies” due to his com­men­tary for Ukrain­ian media.

On Novem­ber 22, 2024, human rights orga­ni­za­tions rec­og­nized Ihar Ilyash as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er.

Sources close to Ilyash pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed that he had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to leave Belarus for more than three years after his last deten­tion. How­ev­er, he chose to stay to sup­port his wife, Bel­sat TV jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Andreye­va (Bakhvala­va), who is impris­oned. Kat­syary­na has been behind bars since Novem­ber 2020. She has been con­vict­ed twice, receiv­ing a total sen­tence of 8 years and 3 months.