The judicial authorities of Belarus sentenced three journalists on Wednesday to between eight and 20 years in prison, including Roman Protasevich, arrested in 2021 when the Minsk regime diverted the plane in which the reporter was traveling.
Protasevich – the only accused present in the Minsk Regional Court – was sentenced to eight years in prison, while Stepan Putilo, founder of NEXTA and Jan Rudik, editor-in-chief of the same portal, were sentenced to 20 years and 19 years in prison. respectively. .
Putilo and Rudik are out of Belarus.
The Minsk Regional Court accused the journalists of trying to “seize power”, as well as “terrorist acts” and insulting the head of state.
The three journalists are founders of NEXTA, a news portal that stood out in denouncing the repression of the regime, especially during the wave of protests against the president of Belarus, Alexandr Lukashenko, in 2020.
Roman Protasevitch was arrested on May 23, 2021, as well as his partner Sofia Sapega with whom he was traveling aboard a Ryanair plane and which made the connection between Athens and Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.
The commercial aircraft was intercepted by a Belarusian Air Force warplane and forced to land in Minsk, sparking international protests against the Lukashenko regime.
The NEXTA portal, which published images and news of the 2020 demonstrations, was considered a “terrorist organization” and stopped working during the wave of repression that marked the period after the presidential elections disputed by the opposition.
After being arrested, Protasevitch agreed to cooperate with the judicial authorities and public television broadcast videos in which he declared that he was sorry.
According to the Belarusian opposition, the journalist’s statements were recorded “under duress”.
Protasevitch has been under house arrest since June 2021, while Sofia Sapega, a Russian citizen, was previously sentenced to six years in prison.
Currently, Minsk and Moscow are negotiating the transfer of Sofia Sapega to Russia, where she will have to serve her sentence.
Source: TSF
