The trial of the Belarusian journalist, a former employee of the TV channel Belsat, Irina Slavnikova, lasted more than a month. Her case was considered by the judge of the Gomel Regional Court Nikolai Dolya – it was he who in December 2021 sentenced Sergei Tikhanovsky to 18 years in prison. The prosecution was represented by prosecutor Irina Podkovyrova.

Little is known about the process itself: it started on June 23, it was carried out behind closed doors, the lawyers signed a confidentiality agreement. The fact that the prosecutor demanded the sentence of Irina Slavnikova to four years in prison became known from her letter to relatives. As a result, the court found the journalist guilty of leading an extremist group, gross violation of public order, and handed down a verdict: five years in prison – one year longer than the prosecutor asked for.

DJV: Calling a job for a crime TV channel is a crime in itself

The German Union of Journalists (DJV) in a commentary to DW called Irina Slavnikova’s sentence “another act of arbitrariness by the Belarusian dictatorship”.

“After the complete elimination of freedom of the press and other fundamental rights, the regime of Alexander Lukashenko brutally and ruthlessly persecutes all dissidents in Belarus.

Irina Slavnikova did nothing but work. Calling her work for the TV channel a crime is a crime in itself, for which Lukashenka and his henchmen must be held accountable,” Germany’s biggest news organization said.

Bundestag member: “This verdict is an absolute sham”

Bundestag deputy from the Free Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), media and culture committee member Thomas Hacker has become a symbolic godfather to Irina Slavnikova as part of the #WeStandByYou solidarity campaign with Belarusian prisoners.

“Irina Slavnikova’s verdict is an absolute sham. I have nothing more to add to that,” he said, commenting on the court’s verdict for DW. “With show trials, fabricated accusations and merciless sentences against innocent people, the regime wants to further clamp down on the brave to preserve its crumbling power.”

RSF: “The accusations against Slavnikova are absurd”

The German branch of the international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called for Slavnikova’s immediate release and called her sentence a blow to press freedom. “Irina Slavnikova has to go to prison only because of her journalistic activities. The Belarusian regime punishes her for her work for a Polish TV channel and uses its judicial system to do so,” the organization said in a statement.

Reporters Without Borders claims that the accusations against the journalist are absurd: she was found guilty of creating and leading an extremist organization, although Belsat, with which the investigation links her activities, was not recognized as such at the time of Slavnikova’s arrest.

“Furthermore, the regime seems to be afraid of an open trial of a well-known journalist: there is no other explanation for why the trial was transferred to Gomel, even though Irina Slavnikova lived in the Belarusian capital, where she was arrested and was imprisoned.”

Belsat: “It is important to remain in solidarity with Irina and her family”

“We understand that if the so-called trial is ongoing, it will certainly not end in a year or two, if we take into account the sentence of our colleague Katerina Andreeva,” says Aleksey Dikovitsky, a colleague of Irina Slavnikova and a representative of the TV channel Belsat. . According to him, when the verdict was postponed – it was supposed to be announced on August 2 – it was clear that “everything would go for the worse”.

“The fact that we are recognized as an extremist formation is absurd in itself,” Dikovitsky is sure. “How can the media be called an extremist group? Are we being equated with al-Qaeda? judged.”

However, journalists are given real terms for these articles. Aleksey Dikovitsky believes that in such conditions “it is important to remain in solidarity with Irina Slavnikova and her family, write letters to her, send telegrams”.

“It is extremely important to know that they remember you. It also affects those who protect political prisoners. The main thing is not to let the democratic world forget Irina and other political prisoners. We will continue to raise this issue in all forums and high meetings with politicians”, – emphasizes the Belsat official.

The Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) also demanded the cancellation of Irina Slavnikova’s sentence. “By this ruling, the closed court in Gomel actually equated the right to receive and disclose information with extremist activities,” the BAJ statement reads. “The Belarusian authorities continue to harass journalists for exercising their right to freedom of expression. But journalists are not extremists, and dissent is not a crime.”

Irina Slavnikova, a journalist for the Polish TV channel TVP, was arrested on October 30, 2021 at the Minsk airport as she and her husband were returning from a holiday in Egypt. First, she was prosecuted twice for “distributing extremist materials”, which the investigation found links to publications by the TV channel Belsat on her personal Facebook page.

On November 26, it became known that a criminal case had been opened against Irina under the terms of article 342 of the Penal Code (Organization or participation in actions of gross violation of public order). She was later accused of leading an extremist formation (Article 361-1 of the Penal Code of the Republic of Belarus).

The witnesses in the case were journalists Daria Chultsova and Ekaterina Andreeva. In February 2021, by court decision, they were sentenced to two years in prison for streaming from the “Square of Changes” in Minsk. A few months before her release, Ekaterina Andreeva was tried again under the article on treason, sentenced to eight years in prison.