Laima Andrikienė: ‘Journalist Katsiaryna Barysevich, a prisoner of conscience on trial in Belarus, is not a criminal, but yet another victim of the Lukashenko regime’
Press release, 18 February 2021
On Friday morning, 19 February 2021, a Belarusian court in Minsk will open the trial of Katsiaryna Barysevich, a famous Belarusian journalist. Graduate of the Belarusian State University and author of numerous articles on courts and criminals as a journalist of the Tut.by online news portal, Katsiaryna is merely 36 years old and is raising an 18-year-old daughter.
Laima Liucija Andrikienė, Member of the Seimas and Vice-President of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, argued in relation to this case that ‘journalist Katsiaryna Barysevich, a prisoner of conscience on trial in Belarus, is not a criminal, but yet another victim of the Lukashenko regime. The regime is targeting a number of journalists because the truth they spread is destroying the last vestiges of support and power of the self-appointed president. It is noteworthy that the trial will be observed by diplomats of European Union Member States.’
‘We have witnessed agonies of numerous regimes. Belarus is now going through one of the kind. We have also seen the farce of courts, where beacons of society were put on trial, found guilty and sentenced to prison without fault. If Barysevich is not released in the courtroom, it will only mean that the judges simply act on a political assignment and that they serve the criminal Lukashenko regime,’ the politician stressed.
Andrikienė recalls that Katsiaryna Barysevich was detained on 19 November 2020 and has been imprisoned in the KGB prison in Minsk ever since. In the meantime, her case was fabricated. The journalist faces a three-year prison term. Amnesty International, the world’s leading human rights organisation, has declared journalist Katsiaryna Barysevich and medical doctor Artsyom Sarokin prisoners of conscience.
Barysevich is charged with quoting the information imparted to her by medical doctor Sarokin in an article to defend the dignity of Raman Bandarenka. Bandarenka had taken part in the peaceful protest of 11 November 2020 and was subsequently arrested, beaten to death and vilified by the authorities. Katsiaryna Barysevich refuted the lies by the authorities that Bandarenka had allegedly been drunk and had died as a result of injuries suffered in a fist fight. Medical records disclosed that no alcohol had been found in Bandarenka’s blood, which Barysevich subsequently quoted in her article. Meanwhile, no one has been detained on charges of beating Bandarenka and no investigation has been launched to this end. Medical doctor Artsyom Sarokin, father of three young children, will stand trial along with Katsiaryna Barysevich.
Aldona Drėgvaitė, e-mail: [email protected]
Monika Kutkaitytė