Belarusian journalist Aliaksandr Lyubyanchuk has been detained since September 2025 on extremism charges.
Lyubyanchuk, a former journalist with the Poland-based independent online television station Belsat TV, was detained in early September 2025 and is currently held in Prison No. 1 in the western city of Hrodna, according to Belarusian human rights group Viasna. He had finished serving a three-year prison sentence in early January 2025 after being convicted in October 2022 of participating in an extremist group. The reason he was re-detained in September is unknown.
On May 26, 2022, law enforcement authorities in the western Belarusian village of Krivichy detained Lyubyanchuk and took him to a pretrial detention center in Minsk, the capital, according to reports by Viasna and local advocacy and trade group Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ). Both Viasna and BAJ are banned in Belarus.
On October 14, 2022, BAJ reported that Lyubyanchuk was charged with “participating in an extremist formation” under Article 361-1, Part 3 of the Belarusian criminal code. The Minsk City Court convicted him the following week and sentenced him to three years in prison.
According to the verdict, which was announced publicly, Lyubyanchuk was sentenced for his collaboration with Belsat TV, BAJ deputy director Barys Haretski told CPJ in a phone interview. On May 7, 2022, authorities in Minsk had seen Lyubyanchuk on CCTV as he went to film the funeral of former Belarusian leader Stanislau Shushkevich for Belsat TV, Haretski said.
On January 24, 2023, the Belarusian Supreme Court upheld Lyubyanchuk’s sentence, BAJ reported. The Belarusian Ministry of Interior added him on February 17, 2023, to its list of people allegedly involved in extremist activity, according to Viasna.
Lyubyanchuk’s health deteriorated after his detention, according to a June 5, 2022, Belsat TV report.
On February 2, 2023, Lyubyanchuk was transferred to Prison No. 15 in the eastern city of Mahilou. Soon after his transfer, the prison administration banned him from receiving packages and visits for three months for violating “internal regulations,” according to Viasna.
In September 2023, BAJ reported that there was little public information about Lyubyanchuk’s state in prison, but that he “does not lose his cheerfulness.”
A source close to the journalist told Radio Svaboda, the Belarusian-language service of U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, in November 2023 that Lyubyanchuk had a spine condition that had worsened in detention.
Lyubyanchuk had been detained several times in 2020 while “performing his professional duties,” Belsat TV reported. Authorities labeled Belsat TV as “extremist” in July 2021, according to news reports, and blocked its website and social media accounts within Belarus.
In late 2024, CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee but did not receive any replies.