The Minsk City Court on Oct. 9 ruled to send Belarusian-Ukrainian journalist Dzmitry Halko to a labor camp, upholding a 4-year prison sentence imposed on him in July.
Halko, who was released from pre-trial detention in July and had been awaiting the appellate court’s ruling, told the Kyiv Post he would be sent to a camp within two weeks.
Halko, a former fixer for the Times of London, a freelancer for the Kyiv Post and a journalist for Belarusian opposition publications, was arrested by Belarusian authorities in April after returning from Ukraine. He was charged with allegedly using violence against police officers in November during his son Yan’s birthday party.
He denies the accusations and believes the case to be fabricated and political.
In August a Minsk court failed to resolve the discrepancy between the administrative and criminal cases against Halko. According to the authorities, Halko was arrested simultaneously by different police officers on Nov. 25, 2017 for a criminal offense (alleged violence against cops) in his apartment, and an administrative offense somewhere outdoors (allegedly for swearing in public).
The court did not close the administrative case and approved Halko’s request to summon the second police officer who arrested him.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said in July that “the Belarusian authorities should immediately release journalist Dzmitry Halko and drop all the charges against him.” The Reporters Without Borders also called for Halko’s immediate release.
Halko has always been an active participant in protests against the dictatorship of Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko. He was arrested on numerous occasions for his opposition activities, the most recent arrest being in 2017.
He became an editor and journalist at the Belarusian Partisan online newspaper in 2016 and helped to transform it into one of the most opposition-minded and critical media outlets in Belarus. The Belarusian Partisan was founded by Pavlo Sheremet, a Belarusian-Ukrainian journalist who was killed by a car bomb in Kyiv in 2016.
Meanwhile, Halko’s sons Andrei and Yan were arrested in September and searched for drugs. When Yan objected to the police’s actions, he was beaten by police officers. according to Halko. He fears that the police may fabricate a case against them.
In March through May, Yan has been assaulted three times by unknown people that Halko suspects to be hired by the police, receiving injuries. One of them criticized Yan for being against Lukashenko and tried to rape him, but Yan ran away, Halko said.
Halko’s other son Andrey had been in pre-trial detention for four months on hooliganism charges and was subsequently convicted to the term he had already served and released in August.
Other Belarusian journalists have also been targeted.
In August Belarusian authorities arrested 19 journalists of the Tut.by, BelaPAN and Realt.by news sites and searched a Deutsche Welle journalist. Some of them were charged with unauthorized access to the site of Belarus’ state news agency BelTA.
In July, Belarusian police raided the apartments of two journalists of Belsat, a Warsaw-based independent television station, confiscated their cameras, phones and computers, and arrested several Belsat journalists.
