Belarusian journalist Kyril Pazniak is serving a prison sentence of three years and six months after being convicted on June 26, 2026, on charges of creating an extremist group and discrediting Belarus. Belarusian authorities have detained Pazniak since September 2025.
The charges against Pazniak are connected to his work for the YouTube channel Platform 375, which has covered politics and economy in Belarus. Pazniak hosted discussions between the government and opposition supporters until 2022.
Pazniak was detained in Minsk on September 3, 2025. The next day, Belarusian authorities designated Platform 375 as extremist.
Independent news website Pozirk reported that Pazniak had been detained on suspicion of involvement with a banned “extremist” online outlet. Authorities later additionally charged him with “discrediting Belarus.”
In 2021, Belarus adopted a package of extremism legislation to combat opposition and to crack down on the media after unprecedented protests calling for the resignation of President Aleksandr Lukashenko following his disputed 2020 election. The 2021 law to combat extremism has been used to ban more than 40 media outlets, according to BAJ.
On May 22, 2026, Pazniak’s ex-wife Alena Pakala said on Facebook that he was in critical condition at the hospital attached to pretrial detention center No. 1 in the village of Pashkovichi, near Minsk, the capital. “He is suffering from advanced complications of pneumonia and COVID-19, which he contracted at the Akrestina temporary detention center [in Minsk] eight months ago,” she said.
“He felt unwell right in the vehicle transporting him and his daughter Yanina to court [on May 14]. He fainted. As far as I know, this has been happening to him very often lately. I doubt he receives proper treatment in pretrial detention. They couldn’t diagnose him for a long time. Now, according to my information, his lungs are failing, and he’s breathing with difficulty,” Pakala told BAJ in a May 22 report.
The trial of Pazniak and his daughter had been scheduled to start in Minsk on May 14, but was postponed to June 17 because of Pazniak’s health status.
On June 26, a court in Minsk convicted Pazniak and fined him 24,750 Belarusian rubles (US$8,530).
“The verdict has no reasoned legal grounds and is evidence that there is no place for a free press in any form in Belarus today,” Siarzhuk Herasimovich, one of the founders of Platform 375, told Poland-based Belarusian broadcaster Belsat TV.
Pazniak’s daughter Yanina, who was detained on September 4, 2025, was also convicted on similar charges on June 26, 2026, but her prison sentence and fine were unknown as of late June 2026. State prosecutors had requested three years in prison, reported Belsat TV. According to the outlet, the charges against her stem from the sole fact that she registered Platform 375 on TikTok.
In June 2026, CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the law enforcement agency in charge of pretrial proceedings, for comment on the charges against Pazniak and his health status but did not receive a reply.