Journalist Andrey Gnyot has been arrested in Serbia for tax evasion, but human rights experts say this is a ruse to extradite him to Belarus.
Andrey Gnyot He wears a tracking device on his ankle in the ordinary Belgrade apartment where he is under house arrest. But he journalist, activist y Belarusian advertising director He fears much worse things will happen to him if his appeal against tax evasion charges fails and he is extradited back to Belarus.
“Anyone who worked during the protests has been detained, arrested and tortured. I think more than 50 or 100 people are still detained in Belarusian prisons,” he told ‘Euronews’ in an interview. By “work” he refers to the hundreds of people who They actively participated in the protests who tried to overthrow the government of President Aleksandr Lukashenko in 2002.
Gnyot believes that Extradition request is due to his role in the 2020 Belarus protests and his team claims that the extradition request is motivated by the Lukashenko regime’s desire to capture him and anyone who spread images of the Belarus 2020 protests.
The Belgrade High Court has already ruled that must be extradited to Belarus. He has appealed to the Court of Appeal and expects a decision on August 27. If you are sent to Belarus, you are sure of the fate that awaits you.
“Torture or death by torture. There are at least 12 cases of people who died in ‘unexpected’ circumstances. They were healthy and all were political prisoners,” he says calmly.
It is rare for European countries to extradite people to Russia, Belarus y Chinasince they are known for the lack of freedom of expression, respect for the rule of law and rejection of most democratic normsincluding the holding of free and fair elections.
Lawyer and human rights expert Nikola Kovačević told Euronews that many European countries rarely extradite people to Russia, Belarus and China due to the very real risk of political persecution.
“Belarus’ request to extradite Gnyot to Serbia It is part of a ruse to capture him and then judge him for subverting the constitutional order.. All accusations against him have been made with the aim of making it easier for the authorities to extradite people like Andrejy Gnyot,” said Nikola Kovačević.
Many Lukashenko critics They face arbitrary detention and harassment in Belarus. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is campaigning for his immediate release.
“As a candidate state for the European Union, Serbia must not succumb to transnational repressions in the name of authoritarian regimes like that of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko, a known enemy of the free press,” said Gulnoza Said, CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator.
Gnyot was detained in Belgrade in October upon arriving in Serbia, and a charge of tax evasion carries up to seven years in prison, according to the Belarusian penal code. Gnyot’s reports were used by ‘Radio Svaboda’, the Belarusian service of the station ‘Radio Free Europe’https://es.euronews.com/’Radio Liberty’, funded by the United States Congress, during the 2020 protests, and the Belarusian authorities They describe the station as an “extremist” group.
Belarusian authorities have jailed an increasing number of journalists for their work since the 2020 protests.
Journalists imprisoned and treated as political prisoners
Reports of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others media have extensively documented torture incidents suffered by political prisoners in Belarus.
A Gnyot He is accused of not having paid around 300,000 euros ($323,600 US) in taxes between 2012 and 2018according to information of the media and Gnyot’s friend.
On November 3, 2023, Gnyot’s lawyer Vadim Drozdov filed a request to delete Gnyot’s data before the Interpol File Control Commissionaccording to a report of the German public channel ‘DW’ and Gnyot’s friend. In February 2024, Interpol blockade temporarily access Gnyot’s data in its database, pending verification that the Belarusian security forces were complying with Interpol regulations.
In December 2023, the Belgrade High Court ruled that the conditions for Gnyot’s extradition to Belarus were met. On March 12, 2024, the Belgrade Court of Appeal overturned that decision but did not cancel the extradition and sent the case for review. The process resumed on March 26.
Belarus was the third worst country in the world for imprisoned journalists, with at least 28 journalists behind bars as of December 1, 2023, when CPJ conducted its most recent prison census.
