New York, September 18, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the September 17 release of Belarusian journalist Andrei Tolchyn, who received a presidential pardon after serving almost a year of a two-and-a-half year prison sentence.
“While we welcome the release of journalist Andrei Tolchyn, he should not have spent a single day in prison,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, in New York. “Despite the recent releases of political prisoners, Belarus remains Europe’s worst jailer of journalists and one of the most hostile places in the world for independent journalism. The authorities must free all members of the press jailed in retaliation for their work.”
Tolchyn was among 37 political prisoners pardoned by Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko on September 16 who were convicted on “extremism” charges, the president’s office said in a statement. The list included prisoners with disabilities and chronic conditions.
“Already in the pretrial detention center [Tolchyn] had health problems: serious leg pain and high blood pressure,” a representative of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, an exiled advocacy and trade group, told CPJ under condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Tolchyn, a freelance camera operator, was detained in September 2023 and sentenced in March 2024 on charges of “facilitating extremist activity” and defaming the president.
Authorities have detained Tolchyn multiple times and fined him in connection with his work and coverage of the 2020 protests demanding Lukashenko’s resignation. Tolchyn left journalism in 2020.
This is the third pardon signed by Lukashenko in the last months; the first one, on August 16, included journalists Dzmitry Luksha and Ksenia Lutskina.
Belarus is the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists, with at least 28 journalists, including Tolchyn, behind bars on December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census.