An incessant crackdown in Belarus hurls dozens of independent journalists into harsh prisons

Journalist Ksenia Lutskina served only half of her eight-year prison sentence in Belarus after being convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the government. She was pardoned after she kept fainting in her cell from a brain tumor diagnosed during pretrial detention.

“I was literally brought to the penal colony in a wheelchair, and I realized that journalism has really turned into a life-threatening profession in Belarus,” she told The Associated Press in Vilnius, Lithuania, where she lives.

Lutskina was one of dozens of journalists imprisoned in Belarus, where many face beatings, poor medical care and the inability to contact lawyers or relatives, according to activists and former inmates. She compared the prisons to those from the Soviet era.

The group Reporters Without Borders says Belarus is Europe’s leading jailer of journalists. At least 40 are serving long prison sentences, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

Lutskina had quit her job making documentaries for Belarus’ state broadcaster in 2020 when mass protests broke out after an election — widely denounced as fraudulent — kept authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko in power. Trying to set up an alternative TV channel to fact-check government officials, she was arrested that year, put on trial and later convicted.

Other journalists fled the country of 9.5 million and operate from abroad. But many have had to curtail their work after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration cut off foreign aid, a vital source of funding for many independent media.

“Journalists are forced to face not only repressions within the country, but also the sudden withdrawal of U.S. aid, which puts many editorial offices on the brink of survival,” BAJ chair Andrei Bastunets told AP.

The 2020 crackdown

Lukashenko’s brutal crackdown after the disputed election led to over 65,000 arrests between 2020-25. Thousands told of being beaten by police, opposition figures were jailed or forced into exile, and hundreds of thousands fled abroad in fear.

More than 1,200 people behind bars in the nation of 9.5 million are recognized as political prisoners by Belarus’ leading rights group, Viasna. Its founder, Nobel Prize Peace laureate Ales Bialiatski, is among them.

Independent journalists have been swept up too, with outlets closed or outlawed. Lukashenko, in power for over three decades, routinely calls them “enemies of our state,” and vows that those who fled won’t be allowed to return.

“The raids, arrests and abuse of journalists have been unceasing for five years, but now they have reached the point of absurdity,” Bastunets said, noting that families of journalists are being threatened. Families of some targeted journalists have asked rights groups not to talk publicly about their cases for fear of further reprisal.

Every month brings new arrests and searches, with almost all independent media leaving Belarus. The crackdown even hits those who switch their focus to nonpolitical content.

In December, authorities arrested the entire editorial staff of the popular regional publication Intex-press, which covers local news in the city of Baranavichy. Seven journalists were charged with “assisting extremist activity.”

Extremism is the most common charge used to detain, fine and jail critically minded citizens. Even reading independent media that’s been declared extremist can result in short-term arrest. Working with or subscribing to banned media is seen as “assisting extremism,” punishable by up to seven years in prison. Websites of such outlets are blocked.

According to Reporters Without Borders, 397 Belarusian journalists have been victims of what the group deems unjust arrests since 2020, with some detained multiple times.

At least 600 moved abroad, the group said. Even then, many still face pressure from authorities who can open cases against them in absentia, put them on international wanted lists, seize their property inside Belarus and target relatives in raids.

Reporters Without Borders filed a lawsuit with the International Criminal Court in January, accusing Belarusian authorities of “crimes against humanity,” citing torture, beatings, imprisonment, persecution and forced displacement of journalists.

Beatings and isolation behind bars

Katsiaryna Bakhvalava, a journalist for Belsat, a Polish-Belarusian independent TV channel, was arrested while covering the 2020 protests. Initially convicted of disrupting public order and sentenced to two years. she was put on trial for treason while in a penal colony and convicted, with her sentence extended to eight years and three months.

Her husband, political analyst Ihar Iliyash, was arrested in October 2024 on charges of “discrediting Belarus” and is jailed while awaiting trial.

Now 31, Bakhvalava, has been placed in a “punishment isolation” cell several times and in 2022 was beaten, according to a former inmate.

Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk, a former political prisoner who fled to Lithuania, told reporters she heard that four prison guards had beaten Bakhvalava, who was crying and asking for a doctor.

Andrzej Poczobut, a correspondent for the influential Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza and a prominent figure in the Union of Poles in Belarus, was convicted of “harming Belarus’ national security” and sentenced to eight years, which he is serving in the Novopolotsk penal colony.

Poczobut, 52, suffers from a serious heart condition and was placed in solitary confinement several times, sometimes for stretches of up to six months, human rights activists said.

At the end of March, his stay in a punitive cell unit — the harshest form of incarceration — was extended for six months. Attempts by Warsaw to intervene have failed and Poczobut has refused to ask Lukashenko for a pardon.

Also imprisoned is Maryna Zolatava, editor of Tut.By — once the most popular online news outlet in Belarus but shut down by authorities in 2021. Zolatava was convicted in 2023 of incitement and distributing materials urging actions aimed at harming national security, and sentenced to 12 years.

Parallels with ‘1984’

Lukashenko extended his rule for a seventh term in a January election that the opposition called a farce. Since July, he has pardoned over 250 people, seeking to improve ties with the West.

Belarusian analyst Valery Karbalevich said Lukashenko “views political prisoners as a commodity. He is cynically willing to sell journalists and activists to Europe and the United States in exchange for easing economic sanctions and thawing relations. And this process has already begun.”

Shortly after Trump began his second term, Lukashenko released two U.S. citizens and a journalist from the Belarusian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a U.S. government-funded news outlet. Two more RFE/RL journalists, Ihar Losik and Ihar Karnei, remain imprisoned and were forced to record repentant videos.

Freed journalist Andrey Kuznechyk, who spent three years in prison, left Belarus for Lithuania.

“The first day after my release, I looked at the list of journalists behind bars and I was shocked by how much it had grown during my imprisonment,” he told AP.

Lutskina, the journalist who also fled to Lithuania, brought her 14-year-old son with her, saying he “must learn to distinguish truth from lies.” They both have read George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” which was banned in Belarus, and are finding “surprising parallels” with her homeland.

“Belarus has turned into a gray country under a gray sky, where people are afraid of everything and speak in whispers,” she said.

Lutskina, who is being treated for the tumor that caused her fainting spells, said she actually felt less fear in prison than her fellow Belarusians outside it.

They walk around with their heads down, she said, “afraid to raise their eyes and see the nightmare happening around them,” she added.