Overview

• Belarusian authorities have sentenced Aliaksandr Mantsevich, the editor-in-chief of the independent Regionalnaya Gazeta newspaper, to four years in prison for 'discrediting the Republic of Belarus' in an ongoing crackdown on independent journalism.
• Alongside his sentence, Mantsevich has also been fined 94,000 Belarusian rubles (approximately $30,000), according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.
• Mantsevich and his newspaper have been accused of using 'extremist' content, a label that the Belarusian government has broadly applied to any materials critical of their policies or practices.
• The sentence arrived in the midst of President Alexander Lukashenko's intensified measures against protestors following the contentious 2020 presidential election, in which Lukashenko claimed a sixth term amid widespread allegations of voting fraud.
• Mantsevich, who had already spent eight months in pre-trial detention during which his health significantly deteriorated, affirmed his pride in his publication, stating, "I'm sure that at some point in the city (of Molodechno) will appear a street named after our newspaper, which strengthened the authority of the Belarusian people, lived through the concerns of our readers and wrote the truth."