Imprisoned Andrej Alaksandaraŭ wins prestigious Free Media Award

September 4, Pozirk. Imprisoned media manager Andrej Alaksandraŭ, who served as deputy director general of the private news agency BelaPAN between 2015 and 2018, has been granted this year’s Free Media Award, which honors independent, pro-democracy journalism in Eastern Europe.

Andrej Alaksandraŭ “has been chosen to receive a Free Media Award for his courage and commitment to freedom of the press and freedom of expression under an increasingly repressive regime,” the organizers say. “Through his work at the independent Belarusian news agency BelaPAN and the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), he has helped strengthen professional standards of journalism, support independent media and build international networks of journalists and human rights defenders.”

Norway’s Fritt Ord Foundation and Germany’s Zeit Stiftung Bucerius named Alaksandraŭ as a winner of Free Media Awards along with Ukrainian investigative journalist Mykhailo Tkack, the Georgian investigative media outlet iFact, the Armenian online media outlet Factor TV and the exiled Russian online media outlet Verstka.

The awards ceremony will take place in Oslo, Norway, on September 29.

The prestigious Free Media Awards, which comes with a money prize of €15,000, was bestowed upon Belarus’ web portal tut.by, the BAJ and four Belarusian female journalists in 2021 amid a crackdown on non-state media in Belarus.

Andrej Alaksandraŭ and his girlfriend Iryna Złobina were arrested on January 12, 2021.

In October 2022, judge Viačasłaŭ Tulejka of the Minsk Regional Court sentenced Alaksandraŭ to 14 years in prison and Złobina to nine years, on charges widely seen as politically motivated, including high treason, tax evasion and organizing actions grossly disturbing public order. Rights groups consider both political prisoners. They married in custody in September 2022.

Alaksandraŭ is serving his term in Penal Colony No. 1 in Navapołack, Viciebsk region, employed in the prison’s woodworking shop.

The now-defunct BelaPAN was branded an “extremist group” in Belarus in early November 2021.

Following the 2020 peaceful protests against election fraud, Belarusian authorities have equated criticism, solidarity, advocacy, the free media and free expression with extremism and terrorism.