Deputy At Belarusian News Agency Gets Prison Term For Cooperating With Opposition

MINSK -- A deputy director at Belarus's leading state-run news agency, BelTA, has been sentenced to five years in prison for sharing information with opposition groups as he looked to avoid repercussions for cooperating with the authorities when it appeared authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka would be pushed from power.

The Minsk-based Vyasna (Spring) human rights center said on April 19 that Judge Alyaksandr Vouk of the Soviet district court in the Belarusian capital sentenced Syarhey Adzyarykha on January 10 after finding him guilty of abuse of duty.

Details of the trial only became available now even though the Minsk City Court rejected Adzyarykha's appeal on March 15, which means that he will soon be taken to a penal colony to begin serving his term.

Investigators accused Adzyarykha of providing information to the opposition People's Anti-Crisis Leadership group and the Nik & Maik opposition Telegram channel in an attempt to distance himself from Lukashenka's regime amid mass protests following a disputed August 2020 election.

Months before the election, which Lukashenka claimed to win but opposition leaders said was rigged, Adzyarykha was awarded with a special prize from the president for his "high professionalism and personal contribution to the development of the state's information policy."

The court determined that he had abused his duty as a journalist by then leaking information to discredit Lukashenka and distance himself from the regime if and when it fell.

Hundreds of Belarusians have faced trials linked to the protests against Lukashenka over the results of the election, which handed him a sixth consecutive term.

Much of the opposition leadership has since been jailed or forced into exile. Several protesters have been killed and there have also been credible reports of torture during the widening security crackdown.