Journalist Iryna Slaunikava celebrates second birthday behind bars

Photo: Aliaksandr Loika and Iryna Slaunikava, family archive

The jour­nal­ist and her hus­band Ali­ak­san­dr Loi­ka were detained at the end of Octo­ber 2021 at the nation­al air­port as they returned from a vaca­tion. Ali­ak­san­dr was released after 45 days, while Iry­na was charged with sev­er­al crimes relat­ed to her jour­nal­is­tic work at the Bel­sat TV chan­nel. On 3 August 2022, she was sen­tenced to five years’ impris­on­ment for orga­niz­ing and prepar­ing actions that seri­ous­ly vio­lat­ed pub­lic order and par­tic­i­pa­tion in an extrem­ist for­ma­tion.

Iry­na Slau­nika­va report­ed changes in her eye­sight in prison, which she attrib­uted to the poor light­ing in the pre-tri­al deten­tion cen­ter where she was held. The work­load in the sewing shop of Homel Wom­en’s Prison aggra­vates the sit­u­a­tion. Accord­ing to Iry­na’s hus­band, con­vict­ed women work in prison as vir­tu­al­ly free seam­stress­es. They have almost no free time because of their work.

Forced to leave Belarus under threat of pros­e­cu­tion, Ali­ak­san­dr Loi­ka is now try­ing to orga­nize a nego­ti­a­tion process for the release of hostages held by the cur­rent regime. The main obsta­cle so far is the fact that the Belaru­sian author­i­ties them­selves refuse to «nego­ti­ate about polit­i­cal pris­on­ers» and clear­ly «over­price» them.