A Belarusian court on Wednesday, sentenced a young female journalist to eight years in jail for treason, handing her a new prison term adding to the one she was already serving on protest charges, the Vesna-96 human rights group said.
28yrs old Katsiaryna Andreyeva who was a journalist for Polish broadcaster Belsat Television was arrested when reporting on mass protests against President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk in 202. She was sentenced to two years in jail for organizing mass unrest, a charge she denied, and was due to be released in September this year.
Belarusian investigators opened a new case against her in spring when she was still in jail and accused her of treason. Authorities have not disclosed details of the case and the trial was held behind closed doors.
Belsat, a Polish broadcaster focused on Belarusian news that Minsk has branded extremists, confirmed her sentencing on Wednesday. State news agency BelTa cited the court as saying that Andreyeva was found guilty of handing over state secrets.
Many of them were arrested during the wave of protests against President Alexander Lukashenko who has been in power since 1994.
According to the Moscow Times, Katsiaryna Andreyeva was transferred from the prison colony where she was held in Gomel, southeastern Belarus, and brought to a pre-trial detention center in February.
“For 55 days, her relatives did not know the details of the case,” Belsat said.
The Viasna rights group said on its website that her family was informed in April that she was given a new “state treason” charge.
The journalist was declared a political prisoner by Vesna-96 after her first conviction. The rights group estimates Belarus is holding about 1,300 political prisoners in Belarus and considers Bakhvalova to be one of the political prisoners in the country.
Belarus’s exiled opposition leader; Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said the sentence was punishment for showing “the truth.”
“It makes me so angry to see the regime take revenge on those who dare to resist,” she said on Twitter.
“She dared to show the truth about the regime’s brutality to the world.”
