New York, August 26, 2025—A Belarusian court convicted freelance journalist Aleh Supruniuk on charges of participating in an “extremist” group” and sentenced him to three years imprisonment on August 8. His sentencing was made public August 25 by the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), an advocacy and trade group operating from exile.
“The sentencing of journalist Aleh Supruniuk to three years in prison, six months after he went missing in his hometown, is yet another example of the Belarusian authorities’ covert attacks of the press,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator. “Authorities should immediately release Supruniuk, along with all imprisoned journalists.”
On December 12, 2024, law enforcement searched Supruniuk’s home in the southwestern city of Brest, seized his computer, phone, and detained him for allegedly distributing “extremist” content. He was sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest, released December 27, and detained again on criminal charges in late January 2025.
On June 4, 2025, the Brest Region Prosecutor’s Office announced that a criminal case against an unnamed Brest resident, reported to be Supruniuk, was sent to court for joining BAJ “no later than October 2023” and writing “at least 43 articles” for the association—which was labeled “extremist” in February 2023.
The Belarusian Criminal Code was amended in 2021 to comply with a package of extremism legislation. Since then, the law to combat extremism has been used to ban more than 35 media outlets, according to BAJ.
CPJ is also investigating the detention of journalist Pavel Dabravolski who has been held since January 2025 on unknown charges.
CPJ emailed the Belarusian Investigative Committee, the law enforcement agency in charge of pretrial proceedings, for comment on Supruniuk’s case but did not receive a reply.
Belarus is Europe’s worst jailer of journalists, with at least 31 behind bars as of December 1, 2024.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.