Belarusian opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, marking the fourth year that Ihar Losik has been in prison, said the RFE/RL journalist had been held incommunicado for some 16 months as he serves a 15-year sentence on charges he, his employer, and foreign governments have called politically motivated.
"Four years ago today, journalist Ihar Losik was arrested in Belarus. There has been no communication with him for over 480 days. His little girl, Paulina, is now living with her grandparents. I want to thank everyone who has joined us in fighting for his release," Tsikhanouskaya wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on June 25.
The 32-year-old was arrested in June 2020 and sentenced in December 2021 on several charges, including "organizing mass riots, taking part in mass disorder, incitement of social hatred," and several other charges that remain unclear.
He has maintained his innocence and calls all charges against him politically motivated.
Losik and about 150 other Belarusian political prisoners, including another RFE/RL journalist, Andrey Kuznechyk, and former would-be presidential candidate Viktar Babaryka, are serving their terms in the same prison in the northern city of Navapolatsk.
It's known as one of the most restrictive and notorious penitentiaries in the country.
Initially, the penitentiary was made up of a number of temporary houses built for workers at a then-newly-built oil refinery in 1958.
It later became a prison where mostly members of organized criminal groups, noted crime kingpins, and so-called "thieves-in-law" served their terms.
Belarusian authorities started sending political prisoners there in 2010.
In October 2023, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Belarus violated international human rights law by imprisoning Losik, concluding that his arrest and detention were "based solely on his journalistic activity and his exercise of the freedoms of expression and of association."
The U.S.-based rights group Freedom Now said at the time that the conclusion was made in response to a legal petition it filed along with the international law firm Dechert LLP.
Losik's parents said in February that the last letter they received from their son, who was placed in a cell-type premises (PKT) where letters, parcels from relatives, and visitations are banned, was on February 20, 2023.
Tsikhanouskaya's husband, Syarhey Tsikhanouski, as well as four other bloggers and opposition politicians and activists, were sentenced to lengthy prison terms along with Losik at the time.
In January 2023, Losik's wife, Darya Losik, was sentenced to two years in prison on a charge of facilitating extremist activity. The charge stemmed from her interview with the Poland-based Belsat TV, which has been officially declared an extremist group by Minsk.
The couple's 4-year-old daughter Paulina is currently in the custody of Darya Losik's parents.
The U.S. State Department, U.S. Helsinki Commission, Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, and several U.S. and EU politicians have called several times for Losik’s immediate release.