Case History: Iryna Khalip
On 19 July 2013, Partisansky district court of Minsk declared the expiry of Ms Iryna Khalip’s suspended sentence. Since then, she has resumed her work as a journalist investigating corruption and human rights abuses in Belarus.
On 16 May 2011, the Zavodskoy district court of Minsk found Iryna Khalip guilty on charges of "taking part or organising actions that violate public order” and sentenced her to two years in jail in a penal colony. The court decided to suspend the sentence for two years, and she was released in the courtroom.
Belarusian journalist Iryna Khalip has been severely persecuted as a result of her work to cover political and social events in Belarus since the 1990s. Iryna writes for the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta which is one of the very last independent newspapers in Russia. The paper is known for being outspoken about government corruption and human rights abuses in the former Soviet Republics and its journalists have faced brutal intimidation and persecution.
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- 19 July 2013 : Expiration of Suspended Sentence against Human rights Journalist Ms Iryna Khalip
- 24 May 2011 : Suspended sentencing of human rights journalist Ms Iryna Khalip, released in courtroom after 5 months in detention and house arrest
- 20 January 2011 : Continued detention of human rights journalist Mrs Iryna Khalip
- 10 December 2009 : Death threats against human rights journalist Mrs Iryna Khalip
On 19 July 2013, Partisansky district court of Minsk declared the expiry of Ms Iryna Khalip’s suspended sentence.
On 16 May 2011, the Zavodskoy district court of Minsk found Iryna Khalip guilty on charges of "taking part or organising actions that violate public order” and sentenced her to two years in jail in a penal colony. The court decided to suspend the sentence for two years, and she was released in the courtroom.
During the two years of this suspended sentence, Iryna Khalip was only allowed to leave the country twice, once for a meeting with her husband in the United Kingdom and on another occasion for a short work trip to Russia. The rest of time, she was obliged to report to a police station every week and to be home every day after 10 pm.
Iryna Khalip was arrested on 19 December 2010 after a protest rally in Minsk following the presidential elections. Following her arrest, she was detained at a KGB (State Security Agency) pre-trial detention facility where she had very limited access to her lawyer.
On 29 January 2011, she was placed under house arrest and was denied any contact with the outside world, including a prohibition of telephone contact or access to newspapers. She was forbidden from having any contact with her relatives apart from her parents and three-year-old son, and not allowed to write to her husband Andrei Sannikov who was detained in a KGB prison.
On 16 May 2011, the court of Zavodskoy district of Minsk found human rights journalist Ms Iryna Khalip guilty of violating part 1 of Article 342 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (taking part or organising the actions that violate public order) and sentenced her to 2 years in a penal colony. The court decided to suspend the sentence for 2 years, and she was released in the courtroom. Iryna Khalip was arrested on 19 December 2010 after a protest rally in Minsk following the presidential elections. She is a Belarusian journalist and correspondent for the Russian newspaper 'Novaya Gazeta'. In 2009 Iryna Khalip won the International Women's Media Foundation “Courage in Journalism” Award. In 2005, she was nominated by Time Magazine as a “Hero of Europe”. She is the wife of opposition Presidential candidate Mr Andrey Sannikov.
Following her arrest on 19 December 2010 she was detained at a KGB (State Security Agency) pre-trial detention facility where she had very limited access to her lawyer. On 29 January 2011 she was placed under house arrest and was denied any contact with the outside world. She was not even permitted to answer the telephone or read the newspaper. She was forbidden from having any contact with her relatives apart from her parents and three-year-old son. She was not allowed to write to her husband Andrei Sannikov who is being detained at KGB prison. On 14 May 2011, Andrei Sannikov was condemned to 5 years' imprisonment for organising “mass disorder” under part 1 of Article 293 of the Criminal Code.
Belarusian human rights journalist Mrs Iryna Khalip remains in detention at a KGB (State Security Agency) pre-trial detention facility, one month following her arrest after the protest rally in Minsk that followed the Presidential elections on 19 December 2010.
In 2009 Iryna Khalip won the International Women's Media Foundation “Courage in Journalism” Award. In 2005, she was nominated by Time Magazine as a “Hero of Europe”. She is the wife of opposition Presidential candidate Mr Andrey Sannikov.
On 10 December 2009, Front Line issued an Urgent Appeal concerning death threats Iryna Khalip had received as a result of her work as an investigative journalist.
On 19 December 2010, Iryna Khalip was arrested while giving a live interview for Russian radio station 'Echo of Moscow' concerning the violent break-up of the demonstration by the anti-riot police in Minsk.
Her husband, Mr Andrey Sannikov, had been badly beaten by the police during the incident. Iryna Khalip and her husband were on their way to the hospital when their car was surrounded by the police. Iryna Khalip was giving the interview by telephone when she and her husband were arrested.
Mrs Khalip is detained in KGB pre-trial facility in Minsk and has been charged under the criminal investigation opened by the Minsk Department of the Interior under Article 293 parts 1 and 2 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus (participation and organisation of mass disorder), breaches of which are punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Since her arrest, her lawyer has seen her twice, on 23 December and 30 December 2010. It is believed that Iryna Khalip is not permitted to receive any correspondence; her parents have received only two letters from her, sent on 21 or 22 December 2010 and on 12 January 2011, which could illustrate the will to isolate her and deprive her of the support of her family and friends.
Iryna Khalip and her husband have a 3-year-old son who is currently staying with Iryna Khalip's parents. On 24 December 2010, when Iryna Khalip's parents were trying to deliver a parcel to the KGB detention facility, they received a call from the kindergarten, and were informed that social services had come to take Iryna Khalip's son, whom they claimed was without a guardian.
Iryna Khalip's mother, who is aged 74, then filed a request for guardianship, which has not reportedly been granted so far. Civil society organisations in Belarus have claimed that this attempt by social services was a particularly cruel means of applying pressure on Iryna Khalip's family.
Belarusian journalist Mrs Iryna Khalip has received death threats following the publication in the Russian independent newspaper 'Novaya gazeta' of her investigation of the involvement of the Belarusian authorities in an ongoing inheritance case.
On 23 November 2009, after Iryna Khalip sent the article to 'Novaya gazeta', she received a text message which stated, 'If you dont remove your article, you will meet Anna Politkovskaya'. Anna Politkovskaya was a human rights defender and journalist with Novaya gazeta who was killed in 2006. On 25 November, Iryna Khalip received an anonymous call in which she was told, 'If the article is published you should stop going out of your home'. On the evening of 26 November, Iryna Khalip received a telegram with threats mentioning personal information which she and her husband had discussed on the phone. Front Line believes that there is a serious risk that Iryna Khalip's personal correspondence has been tapped in addition to her personal telephone, because only the editors of the Novaya gazeta knew about her work on the investigation. It is believed that this may indicate the involvement of Belarusian secret services in the surveillance of Iryna Khalip due to the private nature of the information being monitored.
Iryna Khalip has recently been working on a story implicating the Belarusian authorities, concerning the disputed inheritance of Georgian billionaire Mr Badri Patarkatsishvili who died in London in February 2008. The case reportedly involves the Russian oligarch in exile in London, Mr Boris Beresovsky as well as the Belarusian authorities' interests. In particular, US citizen Mr Emmanuel Zeltser, the lawyer of Mr Joseph Kay, a relative of Patarkatsishvili who claims to be the billionaire's heir, was reportedly forced to come to Minsk in March 2008, where he was arrested, found guilty of the use of false documents, and condemned to three years in prison. Mr Zeltser has not admitted any guilt, but he spent a year and a half in a KGB prison in Minsk in what was reported to be bad conditions. He was pardoned by the Belarusian president Aliaksandr Lukashenka during a visit by an American delegation to Minsk in July 2009.
