The Homel regional court in southeastern Belarus has started the trial of journalist Larysa Shchyrakova on charges of facilitating extremist activities and discrediting Belarus as a crackdown on dissent by the country's authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka continues.
Judge Mikalay Dolya started the trial that is being held behind closed doors on July 27.
Shchyrakova was arrested in early December last year. Belarusian human rights watchdogs have recognized her as a political prisoner.
Investigators say Shchyrakova placed materials online that "discredited" the country and collected information for the Minsk-based Vyasna human rights group, as well as the Poland-based Belsat television channel.
Belarus labeled Belsat "extremist" amid an intensifying crackdown on media and civil society in 2021 and banned it in the country.
If found guilty, Shchyrakova may face up to seven years in prison.
A day earlier, a court in the western city of Hrodna sentenced journalist Paval Mazheyka and former lawyer Yulia Yurhilevich to six years in prison each on charge of facilitation of extremist activities.
Mazheyka and Yurhilevich were found guilty of passing information to Belsat about the decision of the Attorneys Collegiate in Hrodna to expel Yurhilevich and cancel her license to practice law last year.
Mazheyka was also found guilty of giving Belsat information about the persecution of artist Ales Pushkin.
The two pleaded not guilty.
Many journalists, rights activists, and representatives of democratic institutions have been jailed in Belarus since an August 2020 presidential election that opposition politicians, ordinary Belarusians, and Western governments said were rigged.
Thousands have been detained during countrywide protests over the results and there have been credible reports of torture and ill-treatment by security forces. Several people have died during the crackdown.
Lukashenka has refused to negotiate with the opposition and many of its leaders have been arrested or forced to leave the country.
The United States, the European Union, and several other countries have refused to acknowledge Lukashenka as the winner of the vote and imposed several rounds of sanctions on him and his regime, citing election fraud and the crackdown.