Imprisoned Belsat TV journo Darya Chultsova also listed as ‘person prone to extremism’

Cam­er­a­woman Darya Chultso­va has been placed on the pre­ven­tive reg­is­ter in Zhodz­i­na prison as a per­son ‘prone to extrem­ism and oth­er destruc­tive actions’.

It is the prison author­i­ties that informed our col­league of the deci­sion; how­ev­er, she is not aware of the rea­son for it.

Being added to the above men­tioned list means more severe treat­ment of an inmate and restrict­ing their rights even in prison, e.g. there is a spe­cial place in the cell where such pris­on­er has to be when a jail­keep­er enters; they are also expect­ed to be reg­u­lar­ly called in for pre­ven­tive con­ver­sa­tions.

In late March, it became known that Darya’s com­pan­ion in mis­for­tune Kat­syary­na Andreye­va was found her­self in the same sit­u­a­tion. The cor­re­spond­ing deci­sion was tak­en at a meet­ing of the spe­cial com­mis­sion, where the pris­on­er was asked whether she recog­nised her crime, and Kat­syary­na answered she did not.

The two jour­nal­ists’ case was con­sid­ered in Frun­zen­s­ki dis­trict court of Min­sk with­in three days in Feb­ru­ary. The inves­ti­ga­tors claim the Bel­sat crew ‘coor­di­nat­ed pro­test­ers and called for fur­ther actions’, but the two media work­ers were just per­form­ing their pro­fes­sion­al duties by report­ing from the scene. More­over, in accor­dance with the author­i­ties’ ver­sion, the livestream of the jour­nal­ists result­ed in the stop­page of 13 bus­es, 3 trol­ley­bus­es and 3 street­car routes as well as the dam­age to the city trans­port agency Min­sk­trans (around 11,562 rubles). Pub­lic pros­e­cu­tor Ali­na Kasyanchyk demand­ed the two girls serve a two-year prison term each and their work­ing equip­ment be con­fis­cat­ed in prof­it of the state. The defence lawyers asked the court to acquit the defen­dants due to the lack of evi­dence, but the judge took heed of the prosecution’s opin­ion.

On Feb­ru­ary 18, judge Natallya Buhuk passed a ver­dict of guilty and sen­tenced Kat­syary­na Andreye­va and Darya Chultso­va to two years of impris­on­ment in a min­i­mum-secu­ri­ty penal colony.

Andreyeva’s lawyer Syarhei Zikrats­ki voiced the main the­ses of the defence. Accord­ing to them, one can­not qual­i­fy the events of Novem­ber 15 as ‘actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order’. Inter­na­tion­al law guar­an­tees cit­i­zens the right to peace­ful assem­bly, and on that day, Belaru­sians just exer­cised their right, the lawyers state. In their opin­ion, the pros­e­cu­tion failed to present any facts of dis­obe­di­ence to offi­cers’ law­ful demands, which is a nec­es­sary con­di­tion for start­ing pros­e­cu­tion under this arti­cle. How­ev­er, the ver­dict reads that the dis­obe­di­ence occurred. More­over, they did not pro­vide any proofs of the alle­ga­tion that it was the pro­test­ers’ actions that caused a traf­fic dis­rup­tion on that Sun­day.

Kat­syary­na Andreye­va and Darya Chultso­va were arrest­ed on Novem­ber 15 for broad­cast­ing live a vio­lent dis­per­sal of a ral­ly in mem­o­ry of mur­dered pro­test­er Raman Ban­daren­ka and the destruc­tion of a nation­al memo­r­i­al in the so called Square of Change by secu­ri­ty forces. They were film­ing and com­ment­ing on what was going on from the apart­ment on the 14th floor of the house on Smar­hous­ki Trakt Street in Min­sk, where they had been invit­ed by the hosts. After the ral­ly, armed riot police broke the door to the apart­ment and detained the crew.

On Novem­ber 20, they were charged under Part 1 of Arti­cle 342 of the Crim­i­nal Code (organ­i­sa­tion and prepa­ra­tion of actions that gross­ly vio­late pub­lic order). The girls were kept in cus­tody, trans­ferred to Zhodz­i­na prison and held in sep­a­rate cells.

On Novem­ber 24, Belaru­sian human rights watch­dogs recog­nised Kat­syary­na Andreye­va and Darya Chultso­va as polit­i­cal pris­on­ers.