comprehensive

comprehensive

TALLINN, Estonia -- A Belarusian journalist was sentenced Friday to four years in prison after being convicted of aiding extremist activities as the authoritarian country continues a severe crackdown on the opposition and independent reporting.

The trial of video journalist Pavel Padabed was held behind closed doors. His conviction and sentencing were reported by the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

Padabed worked with Belsat, a Polish-funded satellite channel that broadcasts into Belarus and is considered by the Belarusian government to be “extremist media.”

The journalists' association said material presented at his trial included investigative programs about the disappearance of a videographer and the 2016 car bombing in Ukraine of TV journalist Pavel Sharemet.

Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, has taken an increasingly repressive line toward the opposition and independent journalists since mass protests engulfed the country in 2020 following a presidential election that gave him a sixth term in office but was widely regarded as fraudulent.

The journalists' association says 34 journalists are currently behind bars.

More than 35,000 people were arrested during the 2020 protests, and many were severely beaten by police. The Belarusian human rights group Viasna says there are nearly 1,500 political prisoners in the country.

Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against Lukashenko in 2020, met Friday with European Council President Charles Michel and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

Afterward, the European Council issued a statement calling on Belarus to stop allowing Russia to base troops there for use in the war in Ukraine and end the deployment there of Russian tactical nuclear weapons.