Ihar Ilyash recognised as political prisoner

On Novem­ber 22, 2024, a joint state­ment by Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions regard­ing the sit­u­a­tion with jour­nal­ist Ihar Ilyash was pub­lished.

Ihar Ilyash

On Octo­ber 22, 2024, it was report­ed that jour­nal­ist Ihar Ilyash had been detained.

On the same day, a Telegram chan­nel asso­ci­at­ed with Belaru­sian law enforce­ment agen­cies released a video in which Ilyash stat­ed that he was arrest­ed for giv­ing an inter­view to a pub­li­ca­tion rec­og­nized as an «extrem­ist for­ma­tion» in Belarus.

At the end of Octo­ber 2024, it was con­firmed that Ilyash was being held in Remand Cen­ter No. 1, sug­gest­ing that a crim­i­nal case had been opened against him (the spe­cif­ic charges remain unknown).

Ihar Ilyash is a Belaru­sian free­lance jour­nal­ist who has faced repeat­ed per­se­cu­tion for his jour­nal­is­tic work. In Octo­ber 2020, he was placed under admin­is­tra­tive deten­tion for par­tic­i­pat­ing in a «pick­et.»

On July 16, 2021, dur­ing a mass crack­down on inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists, Ilyash was detained in con­nec­tion with a crim­i­nal case under Part 1 of Arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code («Orga­niz­ing or prepar­ing actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order, or active­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in them») and held in a tem­po­rary deten­tion facil­i­ty for ten days before being released.

After his release, Ilyash remained in Belarus. His wife, jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Bakhvalava, has also faced per­se­cu­tion for her work. She is serv­ing a sen­tence of 8 years and 3 months in prison since Novem­ber 2020.

We, the under­signed orga­ni­za­tions, believe that the deten­tion and crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Ihar Ilyash are part of the author­i­ties’ delib­er­ate pol­i­cy to restrict the dis­sem­i­na­tion of uncen­sored infor­ma­tion in the coun­try and an ongo­ing attack on free­dom of speech.

Since the 2020 pres­i­den­tial elec­tions, dozens of socio-polit­i­cal and media web­sites in Belarus have been blocked, sev­er­al print pub­li­ca­tions have ceased oper­a­tions, and jour­nal­ists and media work­ers have been impris­oned.

Giv­en these cir­cum­stances, we con­clude that the true rea­son for the crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion of Ihar Ilyash is polit­i­cal, aimed at halt­ing or alter­ing his pub­lic activ­i­ties, which are legal­ly con­duct­ed in the exer­cise of his free­dom of expres­sion and infor­ma­tion dis­sem­i­na­tion.

In light of this, and guid­ed by para­graphs 2.1 and 3.1 of the Guide­lines on the Def­i­n­i­tion of the Term «Polit­i­cal Pris­on­er» adopt­ed at the III Belaru­sian Human Rights Forum, we, rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Belaru­sian human rights orga­ni­za­tions, declare Ihar Ilyash a polit­i­cal pris­on­er and demand:

• The imme­di­ate release of Ihar Ilyash and the ces­sa­tion of his crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion;
• The aban­don­ment of crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion as a means of sup­press­ing free­dom of expres­sion or oth­er fun­da­men­tal rights;
• The imme­di­ate ces­sa­tion of repres­sion and the release of all polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.

Sig­na­to­ries:

Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists

Vias­na Human Rights Cen­ter

Belaru­sian PEN

Barys Zvozskau Belaru­sian Human Rights House

Legal Ini­tia­tive

Lawtrend

Belaru­sian Helsin­ki Com­mit­tee