RSF concerned about journalist Kiryl Pazniak’s condition

The inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tion Reporters With­out Bor­ders (RSF) has expressed deep con­cern about the health of polit­i­cal pris­on­er jour­nal­ist Kiryl Paz­ni­ak and called on Belaru­sian author­i­ties to pro­vide him with med­ical care.

Kiryl Paz­ni­ak. Screen­shot from video

“RSF is deeply con­cerned about jour­nal­ist Kiryl Paz­ni­ak’s health: he’s been hos­pi­talised after 8+ months in deten­tion. The author­i­ties must guar­an­tee his imme­di­ate access to good med­ical care — and stop per­se­cut­ing jour­nal­ists,” the state­ment says.

As a reminder, on May 22 it became known that Kiryl Paz­ni­ak was hos­pi­tal­ized in seri­ous con­di­tion. The jour­nal­ist’s ex-wife Ale­na Pakala report­ed that he is suf­fer­ing from com­pli­ca­tions of pneu­mo­nia and COVID-19, which he con­tract­ed in the Min­sk Tem­po­rary Deten­tion Facil­i­ty. Accord­ing to her account, Kiryl Paz­ni­ak occa­sion­al­ly faints and suf­fers from lung and breath­ing prob­lems.

Background

Secu­ri­ty forces detained Kiryl and Yan­i­na Paz­ni­ak on Sep­tem­ber 3, 2025.

The next day, Sep­tem­ber 4, the YouTube chan­nel Plat­for­ma 375 was declared an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion,” and Kiryl Paz­ni­ak was named as con­nect­ed to this resource.

Ini­tial­ly, they were charged with cre­at­ing or par­tic­i­pat­ing in an “extrem­ist for­ma­tion,” and lat­er the author­i­ties added charges relat­ed to “dis­cred­it­ing” Belarus. The com­bined accu­sa­tions car­ry penal­ties rang­ing from restric­tion of lib­er­ty to sev­er­al years of impris­on­ment, with the most seri­ous charge pro­vid­ing for up to sev­en years in prison.

The YouTube chan­nel Plat­for­ma 375 was reg­is­tered in April 2021. In 2021–2022, the chan­nel host­ed sev­er­al debates between pro-gov­ern­ment pro­pa­gan­dists and their oppo­nents who were forced to leave the coun­try. The last broad­cast took place on Decem­ber 3, 2022, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Ryhor Azaron­ak (CTV), Yury Tser­akh (SB. Belarus Segod­nya) in Min­sk, as well as Aleh Taler­chyk (co-founder of the orga­ni­za­tion of for­mer secu­ri­ty offi­cers ByPol) and Dzia­n­is Dudzin­s­ki (TV host, show­man) in War­saw.

On Sep­tem­ber 17, 2025, the human rights com­mu­ni­ty rec­og­nized jour­nal­ist Kiryl Paz­ni­ak as a polit­i­cal pris­on­er. On Jan­u­ary 23, 2026, the journalist’s daugh­ter Yan­i­na Paz­ni­ak received the same sta­tus.