Journalist Andrey Gnyot is beneath home arrest in Serbia for tax evasion – however human rights consultants says it is a ruse to extradite him to Belarus.
Andrey Gnyot is carrying a monitoring gadget on his ankle within the peculiar condo in Belgrade the place he’s beneath home arrest.
However the Belarusian journalist, activist and promoting director fears a far worse destiny hangs over him if his attraction in opposition to tax evasion fees fails and he is extradited again to Belarus.
“Anybody who labored through the protests has been detained, arrested and tortured. I believe that greater than 50 to 100 persons are nonetheless being held in Belarusian prisons,” he advised Euronews in an interview. By “work” he’s referring to the a whole lot of people that have been lively in protests that attempted to deliver down the federal government of President Aleksandr Lukashenko in 2002.
Gnyot thinks the extradition request is because of his position within the protests, and his group says the extradition request is pushed by the need of the Lukashenko regime to seize him and anybody who broadcast and posted movies of the protests.
Belgrade’s Excessive Courtroom has already dominated that he must be extradited to Belarus. Gnyot has appealed to the Courtroom of Enchantment and expects a choice by twenty seventh August. If he’s despatched to Belarus, he’s sure of the destiny that awaits him.
“Torture or dying by way of torture. There are a minimum of 12 instances of people that died in ‘surprising’ circumstances. They have been wholesome and so they have been all political prisoners,” he stated, talking calmly.
It is uncommon for European nations to extradite individuals to Russia, Belarus and China as they’re famend for his or her lack of free speech, their weak rule of legislation and their rejection of most democratic norms, together with holding free and truthful elections.
Lawyer and human rights professional Nikola Kovačević advised Euronews that many European nations not often extradite individuals to Russia, Belarus and China due to the very actual threat of political persecution.
“Belarus’ request to extradite Gnyot to Serbia is a part of a ruse to seize him so he can later be tried for subverting the constitutional order. All of the accusations in opposition to him have been made with the goal of constructing it simpler for the authorities to extradite individuals like Andrejy Gnyot,” Nikola Kovačević stated.
The Committee to Shield Journalists (CPJ) is campaigning for him to be launched instantly.
“As a European Union candidate state, Serbia shouldn’t succumb to transnational repressions on behalf of authoritarian regimes like that of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, a identified enemy of a free press,” stated Gulnoza Stated, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia programme coordinator.
Gnyot was detained in Belgrade in October as quickly as he arrived in Serbia, and a tax evasion cost carries as much as seven years imprisonment, in keeping with the Belarusian felony code.
Gnyot’s experiences have been utilized by Radio Svaboda, the Belarusian service of US Congress-funded broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, through the protests in 2020 – and the Belarusian authorities describe the radio station as an “extremist” group.
Belarusian authorities have jailed an rising variety of journalists for his or her work because the 2020 protests.
Reviews by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Worldwide have extensively documented incidents of torture skilled by political prisoners in Belarus.
ADVERTISEMENTBelarus was the world’s third-worst jailer of journalists, with a minimum of 28 journalists behind bars on December 1, 2023, in keeping with the CPJ’s most up-to-date evaluation.
Serbia had no journalists behind bars on the time, aside from Gnyot, who was not included within the census on account of a ignorance about his journalism.
