The trial of the founders of opposition media outlet Nexta, which played a key role in mobilizing the Belarusian regime's 2020 protest movement, began Thursday in Minsk, state media in the former Soviet republic said.
Stepan Poutilo, co-founder of the channel broadcast on YouTube and Telegram messaging as well as Ian Roudik, another Nexta official, are in exile and are being tried in absentia, said the newspaper Sovietskaïa Biéloroussia ("Soviet Belarus").
For his part, the former editor of the Nexta media, Roman Protassevitch, arrested in 2021 and currently under house arrest, is present in the courtroom, according to the same source.
According to images released by the state news agency Belta, Mr. Protassevich repeated before the start of the hearing to recognize "entirely" the charges against him.
All three are accused in particular of "deliberate actions aimed at inciting racial, national, religious and social hatred", "defamation", as well as "mass unrest". They face a total of up to 15 years in prison.
Nexta played a key role in mobilizing the historic protest movement against the August 2020 re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko, which led to it being banned and classified as a "terrorist organization" by the Belarusian Supreme Court.
Journalist and opposition activist Roman Protassevich was arrested on May 23, 2021 with his partner Sofia Sapega when their Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius was intercepted by a Belarusian fighter jet, sparking international outcry.
Mr. Protassevitch agreed to cooperate with the investigation and has been under house arrest since June 2021, while his partner has been sentenced to six years in prison.
He repeatedly assured repentance in videos broadcast by Belarusian public television, statements made "under pressure" according to the Belarusian opposition.
In power since 1994, Alexander Lukashenko was re-elected in 2020 after a presidential election deemed fraudulent by the West, which had pushed tens of thousands of demonstrators into the streets. The mass arrests, forced exiles and imprisonment of activists and journalists have broken this movement.
02/16/2023 11:55:13 - Moscow (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
