Journalist Danil Palianski sentenced to 10 years in prison over “high treason”

The case against free­lance jour­nal­ist Danil Palian­s­ki was heard by the Brest Region­al Court. Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists (BAJ), the tri­al began in mid-July 2025 and was held behind closed doors. The ver­dict was deliv­ered on July 25.

Danil Palian­s­ki, a jour­nal­ist from Brest, was found guilty of “high trea­son” and sen­tenced to 10 years in prison.

In addi­tion to the prison term, the court ordered Palian­s­ki to pay a fine of approx­i­mate­ly $7,135. Due to the clas­si­fied nature of the pro­ceed­ings, the spe­cif­ic details of the charges remain unknown.

Palian­s­ki was like­ly detained on Sep­tem­ber 19, 2024, after return­ing to Belarus from a vis­it to rel­a­tives in Rus­sia. The exact date of his deten­tion is unclear, but short­ly after­ward, he dis­ap­peared from con­tact.

Accord­ing to one acquain­tance, while trav­el­ing through Rus­sia in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, Palian­s­ki was stopped by the FSB. Russ­ian secu­ri­ty offi­cers alleged­ly accused him of dis­obe­di­ence after he refused to show his ID — although Palian­s­ki report­ed­ly claimed that his pass­port had already been tak­en from him by one of the offi­cers and that he intend­ed to chal­lenge the admin­is­tra­tive fine in court.

“Lat­er, when he returned to Brest, he was detained by the Belaru­sian KGB,” the acquain­tance recalled.

Ini­tial­ly, it was assumed that he had been detained for some minor admin­is­tra­tive offense, but with­in weeks it became clear that a crim­i­nal case had been opened against him. Until the tri­al, he was held in the Brest Remand Prison.

Palian­s­ki is 54 years old. Over the years, he worked as a cam­era­man with both state and com­mer­cial TV chan­nels, as well as with inde­pen­dent region­al media. In recent years, he was also well known in Brest for vol­un­teer­ing with the search and res­cue team “Angel.”

As of now, four jour­nal­ists in Belarus have been con­vict­ed and impris­oned under charges of “high trea­son”: Andrei Ali­ak­san­drau, Kat­siary­na Bakhvala­va (Andreye­va), Dzia­n­is Ivashyn, Danil Palian­s­ki.