Contact lost with Brest journalist Aleh Supruniuk amid ongoing concerns

Accord­ing to friends and acquain­tances, Aleh Supruniuk stopped answer­ing phone calls after Jan­u­ary 22. He is also not active on social media.

Aleh Supruniuk. File pho­to

At first, his col­leagues assumed that he had been arrest­ed and sen­tenced on admin­is­tra­tive charges. How­ev­er, more than 20 days have passed and Aleh Supruniuk’s name has not appeared on the dock­ets of the Brest courts. There­fore, it is pos­si­ble that he has been crim­i­nal­ly detained.

A sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion occurred with the Brest jour­nal­ist on the evening of July 6, 2021. At that time Aleh Supruniuk’s house was searched and his com­put­er equip­ment and oth­er dig­i­tal devices were con­fis­cat­ed. Until the next morn­ing, no one knew what had hap­pened to the detainee. The next day, Supruniuk was charged with dis­trib­ut­ing «extrem­ist mate­ri­als» and fined $195. It was lat­er revealed that dur­ing those July days, secu­ri­ty forces were con­duct­ing «raids» against inde­pen­dent media rep­re­sen­ta­tives across Belarus.

In August 2021, Aleh Supruniuk attempt­ed to appeal the deci­sion of the Lenin­sky Dis­trict Court of Brest regard­ing the fine, defend­ing his inno­cence. How­ev­er, the Brest Region­al Court upheld the deci­sion of the first instance court and reject­ed the jour­nal­ist’s appeal.