In Belarus, representative of the Belsat TV channel Irina Slavnikova and her husband were arrested for 15 days

In Belarus, the court of the Pervomaisky district of Minsk appointed Irina Slavnikova, journalist of the Polish TV channel Belsat, 15 days of arrest. reported human rights center “Vesna”. She was found guilty of storing (reposting) extremist materials Belsat and Zerkalo on her Facebook page (the project was launched by the journalists of the Tut.by portal, whose materials were also recognized as extremist). The Viasna center noted that Slavnikova copied these publications before these media were recognized as extremist.

The same court also arrested Slavnikova’s husband Aleksandr Loiko for 15 days for reposting Belsat materials from 2017-2019. The decision to arrest the spouses was made by judge Maksim Trusevich.

Loiko’s lawyer petitioned to return the case to eliminate the shortcomings. In addition, the deadlines for bringing to administrative responsibility had expired, so the lawyer asked to dismiss the case, transfers Belsat.

Slavnikova and Loiko were detained on October 30 at the Minsk airport, where they flew from Egypt. Relatives of the journalist learned about her arrest only the next day, when they turned to law enforcement agencies with a statement about the disappearance of the spouses.

As Aleksandr Loiko later told his lawyer, he and his wife were detained at passport control, handcuffed and not even allowed to take their luggage. He also noted that Irina was detained more severely than him. Before the trial, Loiko was kept in a double cell, where there were 10 people. He had to sleep on the floor.

Irina Slavnikova is the representative of Belsat in Belarus. She also served as Deputy Chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, which liquidated in August 2021 by the decision of the Supreme Court of Belarus.

Belsat is a satellite TV channel established in 2007 under an agreement between the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Polish Public Television (TVP). Broadcasting is carried out mainly in Belarusian, but some programs and interviews are aired in Russian.

Belsat is actively covering the protests in Belarus. Many journalists of the TV channel have been repeatedly tried and arrested. In November 2020, the journalists of the TV channel Katerina Andreeva and Daria Chultsova were arrested for broadcasting a peaceful rally in memory of Roman Bondarenko, who died during the arrest. In February 2021 they were convicted for two years in prison. According to investigators, the journalists were leading “group actions that grossly violate public order”, which entailed disrupting the work of public transport.

In July 2021, the information resources of the Belsat TV channel – its website and pages in social networks – were recognized as extremist… And in September, the Investigative Committee of Belarus announced that a criminal case of tax evasion was being investigated against the officials of the TV channel.