Belarusian Court Sentences Journalist To 8 Years In Prison For Treason - Association

Belarusian Court Sentences Journalist to 8 Years in Prison for Treason - Association

The Gomel Regional Court sentenced Katsiaryna Andreeva, a journalist of the Polish Belsat broadcaster, already serving a sentence in a Belarusian colony, to eight years in prison for treason against the state, a deputy chairman of the unregistered Belarusian Association of Journalists, Boris Harecki, said on Wednesday

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th July, 2022) The Gomel Regional Court sentenced Katsiaryna Andreeva, a journalist of the Polish Belsat broadcaster, already serving a sentence in a Belarusian colony, to eight years in prison for treason against the state, a deputy chairman of the unregistered Belarusian Association of Journalists, Boris Harecki, said on Wednesday.

"Journalist Katsiaryna Andreeva, who has been in prison for 1.5 years, was additionally sentenced to EIGHT years in prison for 'treason against the state," Harecki wrote on his media.

The process was held behind closed doors, the details of the charges are unknown.

Belta state news agency specified that the Gomel court found the defendant guilty of revealing state secrets of Belarus to a foreign state, international or foreign organization or their representatives.

According to the agency, Andreeva was sentenced to a jail term of eight years and three months in a general regime colony.

In February 2021, two Belsat journalists, Daria Chultsova and Katsiaryna Andreeva, were sentenced to two years in prison in Minsk. They were detained after a live broadcast from the scene of dispersal of protesters involving security forces on November 15, 2020 and became the defendants in the criminal case over organizing actions that grossly violate public order. Chultsova and Andreeva were the first journalists in Belarus to receive prison sentences for organizing opposition protests in the republic after the 2020 presidential election.