Belarusian journalist Aleh Supruniuk is serving a three-year prison sentence after being convicted on August 8, 2025, on charges of participating in an “extremist” group.” Belarusian authorities have detained Supruniuk since January.
His sentencing was made public August 25 by the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and trade group operating from exile.
On December 12, 2024, law enforcement searched Supruniuk’s home in the southwestern city of Brest, seized his computer, phone, and detained him for allegedly distributing “extremist” content. He was sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest, released December 27, and detained again on criminal charges in late January.
On June 4, the Brest Region Prosecutor’s Office announced that a criminal case against an unnamed Brest resident, reported to be Supruniuk, was sent to court for joining BAJ “no later than October 2023” and writing “at least 43 articles” for the association — which was labeled “extremist” in February 2023.
On October 24, 2025, the Ministry of Interior added Supruniuk to its list of people allegedly involved in extremist activity, BAJ reported.
The Criminal Code of Belarus was amended to comply with a package of extremism legislation in 2021. Since then, the law to combat extremism has been used to ban more than 35 media outlets, according to BAJ.
In 2021, Supruniuk, who freelanced for several local media outlets in Brest, was also briefly detained and his home was searched.
In August 2025, CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the law enforcement agency in charge of pretrial proceedings, for comment on Supruniuk’s case but did not receive a reply.