The IPI global network demands the release of Belarusian journalists Ihar Ilyash and Daniil Palianski, whose detentions were reported on in the space of a week by independent Belarusian media.

The detention on unclear grounds of Ilyash, who is the husband of imprisoned Belsat journalist Katsiaryna Andreyeva, was reported on Tuesday. In a video later published by Belarusian security forces, the journalist “confessed” to having provided comments to independent media, on topics which included the imprisonment of his wife and Belarus’s involvement in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Prior to his arrest, Ilyash commented on the war in Ukraine to Russia’s independent TV Rain. In his comments, he expressed the hypothesis that Russia would soon coerce Belarus into implicating itself more directly in the full-scale invasion.

In 2021, Ilyash and Andreyeva co-authored Belarusian Donbas, a book on Belarusians who fought on both the Russian and the Ukrainian sides of the front. Belarusian authorities designated the book as “extremist material” and banned its dissemination in Belarus.

Following the mass wave of anti-Lukashenko protests in Belarus in 2020-21, in the course of which his wife was arrested and sentenced to prison, Ilyash systematically refused to leave Belarus, saying that he would not leave the country until his wife remained behind bars.

Details on the case of Palianski are less clear. According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), a trade union in exile, Palianski was most likely detained on September 19 after returning to Belarus from Russia, where he was visiting relatives. The journalist would have reportedly been stopped on the road by Russian security forces, who later accused him of insubordination for refusing to show his documents.

While Palianski was eventually able to reach Brest, his hometown in western Belarus, he was later arrested by Belarusian authorities and accused of “state treason”. According to BAJ, Palianski’s arrest was likely linked to his past work as a journalist for private and state-owned TV channels in Belarus. However, the exact reason for his detention remains unclear.

“The detention of Ihar Ilyash and Daniil Palianski is no more than a continuation of the repressive practices commonplace in Belarus under the leadership of Alexander Lukashenko,” said IPI Interim Executive Director Scott Griffen. “Dozens of journalists have been arrested since large-scale protests shook Belarus in 2020-2021. We demand the release of media workers who were put behind bars for nothing more than doing their jobs.”

Belarusian authorities are notorious for the intensity of their repression against independent media, with 36 media workers behind bars as of October 2024.

Belarusian media operate in an exceptionally hostile environment. Independent outlets are banned as “extremist” and are forced to operate in exile as working with an “extremist” group is a criminal offence in Belarus.