In Belarus, the Minsk City Court handed down a verdict against journalist Pavlo Dobrovolskyi: nine years’ imprisonment in a strict-regime penal colony on charges of treason. The decision was announced by the Belarusian Association of Journalists on January 9. The trial was held behind closed doors; details of the case have not been published. According to media reports, the charges could be related to his professional activities during the protests in 2020.
Dobrovolsky’s detention occurred on January 22, 2025, a few months after returning from abroad. He worked for Belarusian and international media; his last place of work was the independent agency Belapan, which Minsk recognized as an extremist formation and liquidated.
In 2016 the Ukrainian website Myrotvorets published Dobrovolsky’s personal data – allegedly for visiting the occupied territories of Donbas and for accreditation from the group ‘DPR’.
In October 2022, the editor-in-chief of Belapan Iryna Levshyna, the publication’s director from 2018–2021 Dmytro Novozhilov, the deputy director from 2014–2018 Andriy Oleksandrov, and his wife Iryna Zlobina were sentenced to imprisonment with terms ranging from four to 14 years. They were found guilty of treason, extremism and organizing mass riots.
Context and related facts
According to available information, the verdict against Dobrovolskyi may be related to his professional activity during the 2020 protests; official details have not been published.
It is also known that the Belapan agency was liquidated by Minsk as an extremist formation.