Ex-journalist Ihnaciuk faces new charge

March 11, Pozirk. Former journalist Alaksandar Ihnaciuk, who has been in custody since July 2023, faces an extortion charge in addition to extremism, the Brest branch of the Viasna Human Rights Center says.

Until 2003, he had published Vecherniy Stolin, an independent local newspaper in the Brest region and later edited a local news website.

In a police video released on March 11, Pavieł Kuchnaviec of the interior ministry’s organized crime unit has announced that the suspect is a 52-year-old resident of the Pinsk district, but did not disclose his name. Human rights defenders assume that the video is about Ihnaciuk.

Human rights groups consider him a political prisoner.