Belarusian journalist Mikita Piatrouski is serving an undisclosed sentence under house arrest after being convicted in August 20235 on charges of “promoting extremist activity.” Belarusian authorities detained Piatrouski in December 2024.
On August 19, a court convicted Piatrouski and three of her colleagues — Natallia Semianovich, Ruslan Raviaka, and Ludmila Zeliankova — on charges of “promoting extremist activity,” according to a source close to the case who spoke to CPJ under condition of anonymity, for fear of reprisal. Raviaka and another journalist were sentenced to three years of house arrest, and the other two to two years. In addition, all were fined 21,000 Belarusian rubles (US$6,160), the source said.
On November 11, the Belarusian Ministry of Interior added the four journalists to its list of people allegedly involved in extremist activity, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an exiled advocacy and trade group.
According to Article 48-1 of the Belarusian Code of Execution of Criminal Sentences, a person under “home confinement” can go to work, but must be at home from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. and during their free time, cannot leave the country or violate any laws, and is barred from consuming alcohol or going out for entertainment purposes.
When they were detained in early December 2024, all four journalists worked with BAR24, a website covering the western city of Baranavichy created by the former staff of the shuttered independent outlet Intex-Press.
After being stripped of its registration in 2022, Intex-Press’s office was raided in February 2023 by Baranavichy police, who seized laptops, system units and a camera. In April 2023, Intex-Press’s website and social media pages were designated “extremist materials.” Seven of its journalists were detained, and four were sentenced to house arrest.
According to independent news website Nasha Niva, “several other former Intex-Press employees remain in custody, including former director Vladimir Yanukevich.”
In November 2025, CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the law enforcement agency in charge of pretrial proceedings, for comment on the charges against BAR24 journalists but did not receive a reply.