In Belarus, the Gomel Regional Court sentenced Belsat journalist Katerina Andreeva (real name Bakhvalova) to 8 years in prison, the publication itself reports . She was found guilty of "treason against the state."
The case was considered for a little over a week, the first meeting was held on July 4. What exactly formed the basis of the accusation is still unknown.
In a conversation with The Insider, Andreeva's husband Igor Ilyash said that Andreeva "met the verdict with an ironic smile." “She told the lawyer that she thought they would give her 10 years. Only the operative part was read out, that is, we do not know on the basis of what events this criminal case arose, in the operative part some state secrets were handed over to a foreign organization. This is already enough to understand what this case is about, because she collaborated with foreign media, the Polish Belsat, at the time of her arrest, and one of the profiles of her journalistic activity is journalistic investigations. It remains only to guess for which of the materials in the investigation she received this sentence. This is certainly revenge for her professional activities and this is 100% proof that the profession of a journalist in Belarus is criminalized today,” Ilyash said.
This is Andreeva's second sentence. On February 18, 2021, the court of the Frunzensky district of Minsk found Andreeva and her colleague Daria Chultsova guilty of violating the order for streaming from the protest action on November 15, 2020. The journalists were sentenced to 2 years in prison. Andreeva served her sentence in the Gomel women's colony No. 4.