See related stories here, here and here.
Belarusian-Ukrainian journalist Dzmitry Halko, also known as Zmitser or Dmitriy Halko, was sentenced on July 17 by Minsk’s Soviet District Court to four years of compulsory labor in a low-security prison – a Soviet type of punishment that has been abolished elsewhere.
According to the decision, Halko will have to work at a factory or farm and will be jailed in a special dormitory for convicts – a type of prison colloquially known as “khimia” (Russian for “chemistry,” named so due to the fact that convicts often worked at chemical factories).
In such low-security institutions, convicts have more privileges than in regular prisons: for example, they can apply for permits to go out of the jail for several hours. Usually such institutions do not have big fences and watchtowers like regular prisons.
The downside is that living conditions are usually bad: such dormitories are often cramped with people, there is very little kitchen equipment, and there is no hot water.
Halko was released in the courtroom before the decision comes into effect after a ruling by an appellate court.
“I’ll be jailed 1,500 kilometers from my family and my little son,” Halko said, as cited by Belarus’ Nasha Niva newspaper. “They hope that, by sending me to a low-security prison (khimia), they’ll make everyone forget about me. If I was sent to a regular prison camp, everyone would remember me.”
Halko, a former fixer for the Times of London, freelancer for the Kyiv Post and journalist for Belarusian opposition publications, was arrested by Belarusian authorities in April after returning from Ukraine. He was charged with allegedly using violence against police officers in November during his son Yan’s birthday party.
He denies the accusations and believes the case to be fabricated and political.
Halko said during the trial that he was tortured by being repeatedly deprived of food and water, being constantly handcuffed and held in a very small concrete solitary cell for hours. Belarus’ Interior Ministry, which runs the prison system, did not respond to a request for comment.
Alexander Yakunchikhin, the judge in the case, has tried other opposition activists in the past and has been sanctioned by the European Union.
The judge also rejected several of the lawyer’s requests, including a request to question witnesses of an administrative case opened against Halko in November. Halko’s former wife Olga Kravchuk interpreted it as a sign of the judge’s bias.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said on July 7 that “Belarusian authorities should immediately release journalist Dzmitry Halko and drop all the charges against him.” On July 12, Reporters Without Borders also called for Halko’s immediate release.
“Detained since April and facing a possible six-year sentence on a charge of using force against a police officer, he is clearly the victim of persecution,” Reporters Without Borders said.
Halko has always been an active participant in protests against Lukashenko’s dictatorship. He was arrested on numerous occasions for his opposition activities, the most recent arrest being in 2017.
He became an editor and journalist at the Belarusian Partisan online newspaper in 2016 and transformed it into one of the most opposition-minded and critical media outlets in Belarus. The Belarusian Partisan was founded by Pavlo Sheremet, a Belarusian-Ukrainian journalist who was killed by a car bomb in Kyiv in 2016.
Halko’s former wife Olga Kravchuk still worked as the webmaster of the Belarusian Partisan, an opposition publication, at the time of the raid. The police were most likely hoping to gain access to the publication’s site from his apartment as part of a crackdown on the news site before it was shut down by Belarusian authorities in December, according to Halko.
Halko, known for his pro-Ukrainian and liberal views, also covered Ukraine’s EuroMaidan Revolution and Russia’s war against Ukraine for the Novy Chas online newspaper from 2013 to 2015.
He has lived alternately in Minsk and the Ukrainian city of Mariupol since 2014. Previously, he also lived in Russia.
Halko’s son Yan may be sent to a juvenile detention facility if the authorities press charges against him. Yan was beaten several months ago by unknown assailants, Kravchuk said.
Halko’s elder son, Andrey, has been extradited from Russia and will now be tried in a Belarusian court on exhibitionism charges.
