Belarusian freelance journalist Alena Tsimashchuk is serving a five-year prison sentence after being convicted on June 3, 2024, on charges of discrediting Belarus, “incitement to racial, national, religious, or other social hostility or discord,” and participating in an extremist formation. The court also fined Tsimashchuk 46,000 Belarusian rubles (US$14,000).
There is no information regarding the grounds for the charges against Tsimashchuk, those reports said. A representative of the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and trade group operating from exile, who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal said they believed the extremism charge was linked to Tsimashchuk’s journalism.
The BAJ representative told CPJ that the date of Tsimashchuk’s detention was unknown but that it most likely occurred in late 2023. Tsimashchuk was not included in CPJ’s 2023 count of imprisoned journalists due to a lack of publicly available information on her detention at the time.
On August 16, 2024, a court upheld Tsimashchuk’s sentence, the BAJ representative told CPJ.
On August 23, the Belarusian Ministry of Interior added her to its list of people allegedly involved in extremist activity. In September, the Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) added her to a list of people allegedly involved in terrorist activities.
CPJ’s emails to the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the country’s law enforcement agency responsible for investigating crimes, in late 2024 for comment did not receive any reply.