Journalist Ihar Ilyash transferred to pre-trial detention center

Jour­nal­ist Ihar Ilyash, arrest­ed on Octo­ber 22, was remand­ed in cus­tody and charged with a crim­i­nal offense.

Jour­nal­ist Ihar Ilyash

The arrest of Ihar Ilyash, the hus­band of impris­oned jour­nal­ist Kat­siary­na Andreye­va, was announced on the morn­ing of Octo­ber 22. Pro-gov­ern­ment Telegram chan­nels pub­lished his pho­to in hand­cuffs.

The mes­sage of one of the chan­nels linked to the secu­ri­ty forces indi­rect­ly men­tioned that the jour­nal­ist’s arrest was con­nect­ed to the Bel­sat TV chan­nel. The fol­low­ing mes­sage threat­ened to arrest Ihar Ilyash’s friends and col­leagues who alleged­ly report­ed the sit­u­a­tion with him to the inde­pen­dent media.

On the evening of Octo­ber 22, the same Telegram chan­nel pub­lished a video with Ihar Ilyash. The cap­tion read:

“Fol­low­ing in his wife’s foot­steps. This Pol­ish jour­nal­ist spy, togeth­er with his wife, was involved in work­ing with extrem­ist groups and gath­er­ing infor­ma­tion for for­eign intel­li­gence ser­vices. The accom­plice has long been impris­oned for extrem­ism and trea­son. At the same time, the hus­band remained free as his activ­i­ties had been care­ful­ly mon­i­tored. We’re rec­ti­fy­ing this bla­tant injus­tice.»

The video includes footage shot by a police video­g­ra­ph­er. It shows Ilyash being detained in his apart­ment by at least four SWAT offi­cers.

In the video, Ilyash says he «was an employ­ee of the Bel­sat TV chan­nel until July 2021, then went free­lance.»

“Over the years, I’ve giv­en lots of inter­views to dif­fer­ent media out­lets, includ­ing some labeled as ‘extrem­ist groups’ in Belarus.»

He also says that for­eign media, includ­ing Ukrain­ian out­lets, have con­tact­ed him for inter­views and com­ments. For instance, a Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ist who was inves­ti­gat­ing the poten­tial involve­ment of Belaru­sian troops in the inva­sion of Ukraine con­tact­ed him.

The jour­nal­ist says he was detained for giv­ing com­ments to the media that the Belaru­sian author­i­ties con­sid­er “extrem­ist.”

On Octo­ber 25, the Inter­na­tion­al Press Insti­tute, a glob­al net­work, called for Ilyash’s release.

Ihar Ilyash is a jour­nal­ist and the hus­band of Kat­siary­na Andreye­va (Bakhvala­va), a polit­i­cal pris­on­er who has been impris­oned since 2020 on charges relat­ed to her work. She was sen­tenced to eight and a half years. Ihar Ilyash did not want to leave Belarus to sup­port his wife.

Ihar Ilyash also faced repres­sion for his jour­nal­is­tic activ­i­ties. For exam­ple, in Novem­ber 2020, he was detained for 15 days for “par­tic­i­pa­tion in pick­et­ing.” Then, in July 2021, he was detained for 15 days dur­ing the mass search­es and arrests of inde­pen­dent jour­nal­ists across Belarus. The journalist’s apart­ment was searched, and his equip­ment and books were seized.