TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Belarusian journalist Pavel Dabravolski was convicted Monday of treason and sentenced to nine years in a maximum-security prison, activists said, the fifth media worker to be jailed in two weeks in a relentless government crackdown on freedom of the press.
Dabravolski, who has reported for international and domestic news outlets and won numerous prizes for his work, was found guilty during a closed-door trial at Minsk City Court, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists. The 36-year-old most recently worked for BelaPAN, which the Belarusian authorities have designated as extremist.
Massive protests broke out following the 2020 elections, which were widely denounced as fraudulent. More than 65,000 people were arrested and thousands were beaten. In the wake of the protests, hundreds of independent media outlets and nongovernmental organizations were shut down and outlawed.
“Dabravolski’s only ‘crime’ was doing his job and covering the 2020 protests after the stolen elections,” she said. “We see that the conveyor belt of repression inside Belarus continues unabated.”
Activists have reported a sharp increase in government pressure on Belarus’ media workers.
“Repression is escalating and Dabravolski’s sentence shows that the authorities are increasing pressure on journalists in a country that already has the worst freedom of speech in Europe,” Andrei Bastunets, the head of the journalists’ association, told The Associated Press.
The group says that 28 journalists are imprisoned in Belarus.
“It contradicts the idea that the human rights situation in Belarus has allegedly improved due to the release of prominent political prisoners,” Bastunets said.
Under Lukashenko, Belarus has faced years of Western isolation and sanctions for repression and for allowing Moscow to use its territory during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He has recently sought to improve relations with the West by releasing hundreds of political prisoners.
Many more remain behind bars, however, with human rights organization Viasna estimating that there are 1,140 political prisoners.
Also on Monday, Belarus’ main security agency, the KGB, designated four independent publishing houses that publish books in the Belarusian language as “extremist” without any explanation.
Lukashenko has made Russian an official language, alongside Belarusian, which like Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet and is hardly heard spoken on the streets of Minsk and other large cities anymore. Official business is conducted in Russian, which dominates the majority of the media. Lukashenko speaks only Russian, and government officials often don’t use their native tongue.
Viasna activists say that independent book publishers have been facing increased pressure lately, with authorities targeting them with raids and detentions. At least 10 people have been arrested in the last month as part of that campaign, Viasna said.
