BelaPAN director and editor-in-chief Iryna Leŭshyna and former BelaPAN director Dzmitry Navažylaŭ have been in custody for six months

February 18, BPN. BelaPAN director and editor-in-chief Iryna Leŭshyna and former BelaPAN director Dzmitry Navažylaŭ have been held in the Minsk pre-trial detention center No. 1 for exactly six months – since August 18, 2021.

Apparently, the detention period which expires on February 18 has been extended again for both of them. The date of the trial remains unclear. On November 1, 2021, the KGB recognized a group of citizens from among the employees of BelaPAN as an “extremist formation.” The security services do not disclose information about who exactly belongs to this group, apart from Leŭshyna and Navažylaŭ.

In her letters to friends and colleagues, Iryna Leŭshyna notes that she does not lose optimism. “My optimism is very strong, even too strong,” she wrote. Iryna reads books, attends interrogations with the investigator, and has meetings with her lawyer. “I am slowly studying information about the conditions at the Homiel’ women’s penal colony,” she wrote in one of her letters.

On August 18, 2021, Leŭshyna’s home was searched. She was then taken to the news agency’s editorial office for a search and interrogation. Homes of other BelaPAN journalists were also searched.

Leŭshyna was charged under Article 342 of the Criminal Code (organization or preparation of actions that grossly violate public order, or participation in them), Article 243 (tax evasion), and Article 3611 (creation of an extremist formation or participation in it).

Media manager Andrej Aliaksandraŭ, the deputy director of BelaPAN in 2014-2018, has been in custody since January 12, 2021. He is charged under three articles of the Criminal Code: 342, 243, and 356 (high treason).

On January 15, 2021, Deputy Interior Minister Henadz’ Kazakievič stated that Aliaksandraŭ and his girlfriend Iryna Zlobina were detained “on suspicion of financing protest activities.” According to Kazakievič, Aliaksandraŭ and Zlobina were financing persons who participated in protests in Minsk since August 2020, including “by paying fines and reimbursing detention in the Offenders’ Detention Center and temporary detention facilities.”