Poland summons Belarus diplomat over conviction of journalist working for Polish state TV

Poland’s foreign ministry has summoned Belarus’ chargé d’affaires to lodge a protest against the Belarusian authorities’ repression of the media and civil society after the jailing of a journalist who worked for Polish state broadcaster TVP.

On Wednesday this week, Iryna Slavnikova, who has been in detention since last October, was sentenced at a behind-closed-doors trial to five years in a penal colony for “organising or participating in gross violations of public order” and “creating an extremist group”.

According to Belsat – a Poland-based Belarusian-language broadcaster that is a subsidiary of TVP – Slavnikova had faced charges on the basis of her previous work for Belsat, which the Belarusian authorities last year declared to be an extremist organisation.

In a statement issued yesterday, Poland’s foreign ministry noted that it had summoned chargé d’affaires Aliaksandr Chasnouski ” to express firm opposition to the ongoing persecution against journalists in Belarus”. It noted that last month another journalist, Katsyaryna Andreeva of Belsat, was sentenced to eight years in prison.

“Sentencing journalists to long prison terms is a violation of human rights and international standards,” wrote the foreign ministry, adding that there are currently 1,250 people in Belarus classified as political prisoners and that 29 journalists are imprisoned.

Among them is Andrzej Poczobut, a leading figure in Belarus’ ethnic Polish community, who has been in custody since March last year, with his family expressing concerns about his worsening health.

“The foreign ministry of the Republic of Poland demands that the Belarusian authorities stop the persecution of journalists, as well as members of the Polish minority in Belarus and other representatives of civil society, immediately release all political prisoners, and clear them of politically motivated charges,” concluded the statement.

Slavnikova was detained with her husband in late October 2021 at Minsk airport as they were returning from a holiday in Egypt, Belsat reported.

First, the two were sentenced to 15 days in jail for posting “extremist content” on Facebook under the misdemeanours code. The material in question came from Belsat TV, although it was from a time when the station was not yet classified as “extremist” in Belarus.

After serving her sentence, the journalist was not released from jail. Instead, she heard criminal charges of “organising and preparing actions grossly violating public order or actively participating in them” and of “creating or participating in an extremist formation”.

“Such accusations clearly testify to the ill-will of the authorities in Minsk, who are using the security and judicial apparatus, which is completely dependent on them, to eliminate from public life people such as Iryna Slavnikova,” said TVP’s management board in a statement at the time.

TVP said that Slavnikova “as a journalist with Polish Television and an activist in the independent journalistic community was very active in providing Belarusians with reliable information”.

Slavnikova’s sentencing was this week also condemned by the European Commission, whose spokesman Peter Sano told the Polish Press Agency that it is “another example of how the regime in Minsk is trying to silence independent journalism”.

Main photo credit: Bajby/Telegram

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.